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N  HEROES, 


AND  THE   HEROIC 

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V 


ON  HEROES, 


HERO-WORSHIP,   AND  THE   HEROIC 


IN    HISTORY. 


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REPORTED,  WITH  EMENDATIONS  AND  ADDITIONS. 

By  THOMAS  CARLYLE. 

Author  of  "  The  French  Revolution,"  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  &c. 

THIRD   EDITION. 


CINCINNATI: 
PUBLISHED    BY    U.    P.   JAMES, 

NO.     26     PEARL     STREET. 


M  DCCC  XLII. 


f  ^76& 


I 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 


PAGE 

The  Hero  as  Divinity. — Odin.     Paganism:   Scandinavian 
Mythology, 5 

LECTURE  II. 
The  Hero  as  Prophet. — Mahomet :  Islam,    -        -        -        -    54 

LECTURE  III. 

The  Hero  as  Poet. — Dante;  Shakspeare,       -        -        -        -    98 

LECTURE  IV. 

The  Hero  as  Priest. — Luther ;  Reformation ;  Knox ;  Puri- 
tanism,       143 

LECTURE  V. 

The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters. — Johnson,  Rousseau,  Burns,  -  190 

LECTURE  VI. 

The  Hero  as  King. — Cromwell. — Napoleon :  Modern  Revo- 
lutionism,           -        -         -        -  241 


LECTURE  I. 

[Tuesday,  5th  May,  1840.] 

THE    HERO  AS    DIVINITY. ODIN. — PAGANISM!    SCAN- 
DINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY. 

We  have  undertaken  to  discourse  here  for  a  little 
on  Great  Men,  their  manner  of  appearance  in  our 
world's  business,  how  they  have  shaped  themselves 
in  the  world's  history,  what  ideas  men  formed  of  them, 
what  work  they  did; — on  Heroes,  namely,  and  on 
their  reception  and  performance;  what  I  call  Hero- 
worship  and  the  Heroic  in  human  affairs.  Too  evi- 
dently this  is  a  large  topic;  deserving  quite  other 
treatment  than  we  can  expect  to  give  it  at  present. 
A  large  topic;  indeed,  an  illimitable  one;  wide  as 
Universal  History  itself.  For,  as  I  take  it,  Univer- 
sal History,  the  history  of  what  man  has  accom- 
plished in  this  world,  is  at  bottom  the  History  of  the 
Great  Men  who  have  worked  here.  They  were  the 
leaders  of  men,  these  great  ones;  the  modellers,  pat- 
terns, and  in  a  wide  sense  creators,  of  whatsoever 
the  general  mass  of  men  contrived  to  do  or  to  attain; 
all  things  that  we  see  standing  accomplished  in  the 
world  are  properly  the  outer  material  result,  the  prac- 
tical realization  and  imbodiment,  of  Thoughts  that 
dwelt  in  the  Great  Men  sent  into  the  world:  the  soul 
of  the  whole  world's  history,  it  may  justly  be  con- 
sidered, were  the  history  of  these.  Too  clearly  it  is 
a  topic  we  shall  do  no  justice  to  in  this  place! 
I 


0  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

One  comfort  is,  that  Great  Men,  taken  up  in  any 
way,  are  profitable  company.  We  cannot  look,  how- 
ever imperfectly,  upon  a  great  man,  without  gaining 
something  by  him.  He  is  the  living  light-fountain, 
which  it  js  good  and  pleasant  to  be  near.  The  light 
which  enlightens,  which  has  enlightened  the  dark- 
ness of  the  world:  and  this  not  a  kindled  lamp  only, 
but  rather  as  a  natural  luminary  shining  by  the  gift 
of  Heaven;  a  flowing  light-fountain,  as  I  say,  of  na- 
tive original  insight,  of  manhood  and  heroic  noble- 
ness-— ii}  whose  radiance  all  souls  feel  that  it  is  well 
with  them.  On  any  terms  whatsoever,  you  will  not 
grudge  to  wander  in  such  neighbourhood  for  awhile. 
These  Six  classes  of  Heroes,  chosen  out  of  widely 
distant  countries  and  epochs,  and  in  mere  external 
figure  differing  altogether,  ought,  if  we  look  faithfully 
at  them,  to  illustrate  several  things  for  us.  Could  we 
see  them  well,  we  should  get  some  glimpses  into  the 
very  marrow  of  the  world's  history.  How  happy, 
could  I  but,  in  any  measure,  in  such  times  as  these, 
make  manifest  to  you  the  meanings  of  Heroism;  the 
divine  relation  (for  1  may  well  call  it  such)  which  in  all 
times  unites  a  Great  Man  to  other  men ;  and  thus,  as  it 
were,  not  exhaust  my  subject,  but  so  much  as  break 
ground  on  it!  At  all  events,  I  must  make  the  attempt. 

It  is  well  said,  in  every  sense,  that  a  man's  religion 
is  the  chief  fact  with  regard  to  him.  A  man's,  or  a 
nation  of  men's.  By  religion  I  do  not  mean  here  the 
church-creed  which  he  professes,  the  articles  of  faith 
which  he  will  sign,  and,  in  words  or  otherwise,  assert; 
not  this  wholly,  in  many  cases  not  this  at  all.  We 
see  men  of  all  kinds  of  professed  creeds  attain  to 
almost  all  degrees  of  worth  or  worthlessness  under 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  / 

each  or  any  of  them.  This  is  not  what  I  call  reli- 
gion, this  profession  and  assertion;  which  is  often 
only  a  profession  and  assertion  from  the  outworks  of 
the  man,  from  the  mere  argumentative  region  of  him, 
if  even  so  deep  as  that.  But  the  thing  a  man  does 
practically  believe,  (and  this  is  often  enough  iviihoitt 
asserting  it  even  to  himself,  much  less  to  others;) 
the  thing  a  man,  does  practically  lay  to  heart,  and 
know  for  certain,  concerning  his  vital  relations  to 
this  mysterious  Universe,  and  his  duty  and  destiny 
there,  that  is  in  all  cases  the  primary  thing  for  him, 
and  creatively  determines  all  the  rest.  That  is  his 
religion;  or,  it  may  be,  his  mere  skepticism  and  no- 
religion:  the  manner  it  is  in  which  he  feels  himself 
to  be  spiritually  related  to  the  Unseen  World  or  No- 
World;  and  I  say,  if  you  tell  me  what  that  is,  you 
tell  me  to  a  very  great  extent  what  the  man  is,  what 
the  kind  of  things  he  will  do  is.  Of  a  man  or  of  a 
nation  we  inquire,  therefore,  first  of  all,  What  reli- 
gion they  had  ?  Was  it  Heathenism, — plurality  of 
gods,  mere  sensuous  representation  of  this  Mystery 
of  Life,  and  for  chief  recognised  element  therein 
Physical  Force?  Was  it  Christianism;  faith  in  an 
Invisible,  not  as  real  only,  but  as  the  only  reality; 
Time,  through  every  meanest  moment  of  it,  rest- 
ing on  Eternity;  Pagan  empire  of  Force  displayed 
by  a  nobler  supremacy,  that  of  Holiness?  Was  it 
Skepticism,  uncertainty  and  inquiry  whether  there 
was  an  Unseen  World,  any  Mystery  of  Life  except 
a  mad  one; — doubt  as  to  all  this,  or  perhaps  unbelief 
and  flat  denial  ?  Answering  of  this  question  is  giving 
us  the  soul  of  the  history  of  the  man  or  nation. — 
The  thoughts  they  had  were  the  parents  of  the  actions 
they  did ;  their  feelings  were  parents  of  their  thoughts; 


8  THE  HERO   AS  DIVINITY. 

it  was  the  unseen  spiritual  in  them  that  determined 
the  outward  and  actual; — their  religion,  as  I  say,  was 
the  great  fact  about  them.  In  these  Discourses, 
limited  as  we  are,  it  will  be  good  to  direct  our  survey 
chiefly  to  that  religious  phasis  of  the  matter.  That 
once  known  well,  all  is  known.  We  have  chosen  as 
the  first  Hero  in  our  series,  Odin  the  central  figure 
of  Scandinavian  Paganism;  an  emblem  to  us  of  a 
most  extensive  province  of  things.  Let  us  look,  for 
a  little,  at  the  Hero  as  Divinity,  the  oldest  primary 
form  of  Heroism. 

Surely  it  seems  a  very  strange-looking  thing  this 
Paganism;  almost  inconceivable  to  us  in  these  days. 
A  bewildering,  inextricable  jungle  of  delusions, 
confusions,  falsehoods,  and  absurdities  covering  the 
whole  field  of  life  there.  A  thing  that  fills  us  with 
astonishment,  almost,  if  it  were  possible,  with  in- 
credulity,— for  truly  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  that 
sane  men  could  ever  calmly,  with  their  eyes  open, 
believe  and  live  by  such  a  set  of  doctrines.  That 
men  should  have  worshipped  their  poor  fellow-man 
as  a  God,  and  not  him  only,  but  stocks  and  stones, 
and  all  manner  of  animate  and  inanimate  objects;  and 
fashioned  for  themselves  such  a  distracted  chaos  of 
hallucinations  by  way  of  Theory  of  the  Universe:  all 
this  looks  like  an  incredible  fable.  Nevertheless  it 
is  a  clear  fact  that  they  did  it.  Such  hideous  inex- 
tricable jungle  of  misworships,  misbeliefs,  men,  made 
as  we  are,  did  actually  hold  by,  and  live  at  home  in. 
This  is  strange.  Yes,  we  may  pause  in  sorrow  and 
silence  over  the  depths  of  darkness  that  are  in  man; 
if  we  rejoice  in  the  heights  of  purer  vision  he  has 
attained  to.  Such  things  were  and  are  in  man;  in  all 
men;  in  us  too. 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  9 

Some  speculators  have  a  short  way  of  accounting 
for  the  Pagan  religion:  mere  quackery,  priestcraft, 
and  dupery,  say  they;  no  sane  man  ever  did  believe 
it, — merely  contrived  to  persuade  other  men,  not 
worthy  of  the  name  of  sane,  to  believe  it!  It  will 
be  often  our  duty  to  protest  against  this  sort  of  hypo- 
thesis about  men's  doings  and  history;  and  I  here, 
on  the  very  threshold,  protest  against  it  in  reference 
to  Paganism,  and  to  all  other  isms  by  which  man 
has  ever  for  a  length  of  lime  striven  to  walk  in  this 
world.  -  They  have  all  had  a  truth  in  them,  or  men 
would  not  have  taken  them  up.  Quackery  and 
dupery  do  abound;  in  religions,  above  all  in  the  more 
advanced  decaying  stages  of  religions,  they  have 
fearfully  abounded:  but  quackery  was  never  the 
originating  influence  in  such  things;  it  was  not  the 
health  and  life  of  such  things,  but  their  disease,  the 
sure  precursor  of  their  being  about  to  die!  Let  us 
never  forget  this.  It  seems  to  me  a  most  mournful 
hypothesis,  that  of  quackery  giving  birth  to  any  faith 
even  in  savage  men.  Quackery  gives  birth  to  no- 
thing; gives  death  to  all.  We  shall  not  see  into  the 
true  heart  of  any  thing,  if  we  look  merely  at  the 
quackeries  of  it;  if  we  do  not  reject  the  quackeries 
altogether;  as  mere  diseases,  corruptions,  with  which 
our  and  all  men's  sole  duty  is  to  have  done  with 
them,  to  sweep  them  out  of  our  thoughts  as  out  of 
our  practice,  Man  every  where  is  the  born  enemy 
of  lies.  I  find  Grand  Lamaism  itself  to  have  a  kind 
of  truth  in  it.  Read  the  candid,  clear-sighted,  rather 
skeptical  Mr.  Hamilton's  Travels  into  that  country, 
and  see.  They  have  their  belief,  these  poor  Thibet 
people,  that  Providence  sends  down  always  an  incar- 
nation of  Himself  into  every  generation.     At  bottom 

1* 


10  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

some  belief  In  a  kind  of  Pope !  At  bottom  still  better 
belief  that  there  is  a  Greatest  Man;  that  he  is  dis- 
coverable; that,  once  discovered,  we  ought  to  treat 
him  with  an  obedience  which  knows  no  bounds! — 
This  is  the  truth  of  Grand  Lamaism;  the  "discovera- 
bility" is  the  only  error  here.  The  Thibet  Priests 
have  methods  of  their  own  of  discovering  what  Man 
is  Greatest,  fit  to  be  supreme  over  them.  Bad  me- 
thods: but  are  they  so  much  worse  than  our  methods, 
— of  understanding  him  to  be  always  the  eldest-born 
of  a  certain  genealogy?     Alas,  it  is  a  difficult  thing 

to  find  good  methods  for! We  shall  begin  to  have 

a  chance  of  understanding  Paganism,  when  we  first 
admit  that  to  its  followers  it  was  at  one  time,  earnestly 
true.  Let  us  consider  it  very  certain  that  men  did 
believe  in  Paganism;  men  with  open  eyes,  sound 
senses,  men  made  altogether  like  ourselves;  that  we, 
had  we  been  there,  should  have  believed  in  it.  Ask 
now,  What  Paganism  could  have  been? 

Another  theory,  somewhat  more  respectable,  attri- 
butes such  things  to  Allegory.  It  was  a  play  of  poetic 
minds,  say  these  theorists;  a  shadowing  forth,  in  alle- 
gorical fable,  in  personification  and  visual  form,  of 
what  such  poetic  minds  had  known  and  felt  of  this 
Universe.  Which  agrees,  add  they,  with  a  primary 
law  of  human  nature,  still  every  where  observable  at 
work,  though  in  less  important  things,«That  what  a 
man  feels  intensely,  he  struggles  to  speak  out  of  him, 
to  see  represented  before  him  in  visual  shape,  and  as 

if  with  a  kind  of  life  and  historical  reality  in  it. 

Now  doubtless  there  is  such  a  law,  and  it  is  one  c  f 
the  deepest  in  human  nature;  neither  need  we  doubt 
that  it  did  operate  fundamentally  in  this  business. — 
The  hypothesis  which  ascribes  Paganism  wholly  or 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  11 

mostly  to  this  agency,  I  call  a  little  more  respectable; 
but  I  cannot  yet  call  it  the  true  hypothesis.  Think, 
would  we  believe,  and  take  with  us  as  our  life-gui- 
dance, an  allegory,  a  poetic  sport?  Not  sport,  but 
earnest,  is  what  we  should  require.  It  is  a  most 
earnest  thing  to  be  alive  in  this  world;  to  die  is  not 
sport  for  a  man.  Man's  life  never  was  a  sport  to  him ; 
it  was  a  stern  reality,  altogether  a  serious  matter  to  be 
alive!  I  find,  therefore,  that  though  these  Allegory- 
theorists  are  on  the  way  towards  truth  in  this  matter, 
they  have  not  reached  it  either.  Pagan  religion  is 
indeed  an  Allegory,  a  Symbol  of  what  men  felt  and 
knew  about  the  Universe;  and  all  Religions  are 
Symbols  of  that,  altering  always  as  that  alters:  but 
it  seems  to  me  a  radical  perversion,  and  even  inver- 
sion, of  the  business,  to  put  that  forward  as  the  origin 
and  moving  cause,  when  it  was  rather  the  result  and 
termination.  To  get  beautiful  allegories,  a  perfect 
poetic  symbol,  was  not  the  want  of  men;  but  to  know 
what  they  were  to  believe  about  this  Universe, 
what  course  they  were  to  steer  in  it;  what,  in  this 
mysterious  Life  of  theirs,  they  had  to  hope  and  to 
fear,  to  do  and  to  forbear  doing.  The  Pilgrim 's  Pro- 
gress is  an  Allegory,  and  a  beautiful,  just,  and  serious 
one:  but  consider  whether  Bunyan's  Allegory  could 
have  preceded  the  Faith  it  symbolizes!  The  faith 
had  to  be  already  there,  standing  believed  by  every 
body;  of  which  the  Allegory  could  then  become  a 
shadow;  and,  with  all  its  seriousness,  we  may  say  a 
sportful  shadow,  a  mere  play  of  the  Fancy,  in  com- 
parison with  that  awful  fact  and  scientific  certainty, 
which  it  poetically  strives  to  emblem.  The  Allegory 
is  the  product  of  the  certainty,  not  the  producer  of  it; 
not  in  Bunyan's  nor  in  any  other  case.     For  Pagan- 


12  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

ism,  therefore,  we  have  still  to  inquire,  Whence 
came  that  scientific  certainty,  the  parent  of  such  a 
bewildered  heap  of  allegories,  errors,  and  confu- 
sions?    How  was  it,  what  was  it? 

Surely,  it  were  a  foolish  attempt  to  pretend  "ex- 
plaining," in  this  place,  or  in  any  place,  such  a 
phenomenon  as  that  far-distant,  distracted,  cloudy 
imbroglio  of  Paganism, — more  like  a  cloud-field,  than 
a  distant  continent  of  firm  land  and  facts!  It  is  no 
longer  a  reality,  yet  it  was  one.  We  ought  to  under- 
stand that  this  seeming  cloud-field  was  once  a  reality; 
that  not  poetic  allegory,  least  of  all  that  dupery  and 
deception  was  the  origin  of  it.  Men,  I  say,  never 
did  believe  idle  songs,  never  risked  their  soul's  life 
on  allegories:  men,  in  all  times,  especially  in  early 
earnest  times,  have  had  an  instinct  for  detecting 
quacks,  for  detesting  quacks.  Let  us  try  if,  leaving 
out  both  the  quack-theory  and  the  allegory  one,  and 
listening  with  affectionate  attention  to  that  far-off, 
confused  rumour  of  the  Pagan  ages,  we  cannot  ascer- 
tain so  much  as  this  at  least,  That  there  was  a  kind 
of  fact  at  the  heart  of  them;  that  they  too  were  not 
mendacious  and  distracted,  but  in  their  own  poor 
way  true  and  sane ! 

You  remember  that  fancy  of  Aristotle's,  of  a  man 
who  had  grown  to  maturity  in  some  dark  distance, 
and  was  brought  on  a  sudden  into  the  upper  air  to 
see  the  sun  rise.  What  would  his  wonder  be,  says 
the  Philosopher,  his  rapt  astonishment  at  the  sight 
we  daily  witness  with  indifference!  With  the  free 
open  sense  of  a  child,  yet  with  the  ripe  faculty  of  a 
man,  his  whole  heart  would  be  kindled  by  that  sight, 
he  would  discern  it  well  to  be  Godlike,  his  soul  would 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  13 

fall  down  in  worship  before  it.  Now,  just  such  a 
childlike  greatness  was  in  the  primitive  nations. 
The  first  Pagan  Thinker  among  rude  men,  the  first 
man  that  began  to  think,  was  precisely  the  child-man 
of  Aristotle.  Simple,  open  as  a  child,  yet  with  the 
depth  and  strength  of  a  man.  Nature  had  as  yet  no 
name  to  him;  he  had  not  yet  united  under  a  name 
the  infinite  variety  of  sights,  sounds,  shapes,  and 
motions,  which  we  now  collectively  name  Universe, 
Nature,  or  the  like, — and  so  with  a  name  dismiss  it 
from  us.  To  the  wild  deep-hearted  man  all  was  yet 
new,  unveiled  under  names  or  formulas;  it  stood 
naked,  flashing  in  on  him  there,  beautiful,  awful, 
unspeakable.*  Nature  was  to  this  man,  what  to  the 
Thinker  and  Prophet  it  for  ever  is,  jp  re /er  natural. 
This  green,  flowery,  rock-built  earth,  the  trees,  the 
mountains,  rivers,  many-sounding  seas; — that  great 
deep  sea  of  azure  that  swims  overhead;  the  winds 
sweeping  through  it;  the  black  cloud  fashioning  itself 
together,  now  pouring  out  fire,  now  hail  and  rain; 
what  is  it?  Ay,  what?  At  bottom  we  do  not  yet 
know;  we  can  never  know  at  all.  It  is  not  by  our 
superior  insight  that  we  escape  the  difficulty;  it  is 
by  our  superior  levity,  our  inattention,  our  want  of 
insight.  It  is  by  not  thinking  that  we  cease  to  won- 
der at  it.  Hardened  around  us,  incasing  wholly  every 
notion  we  form,  is  a  wrappage  of  traditions,  hearsays, 
mere  words.  We  call  that  fire  of  the  black  thunder- 
cloud "electricity,"  and  lecture  learnedly  about  it, 
and  grind  the  like  of  it  out  of  glass  and  silk:  but  what 
is  it?  What  made  it?  Whence  comes  it  ?  Whither 
goes  it  ?  Science  has  done  much  for  us;  but  it  is  a 
poor  science  that  would  hide  from  us  the  great,  deep 
sacred  infinitude  of  Nescience,  whither  we  can  never 


14  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

penetrate,  on  which  all  science  swims  as  a  mere 
superficial  film.  This  world,  after  all  our  science 
and  sciences,  is  still  a  miracle;  wonderful,  inscru- 
table, magical,  and  more,  to  whosoever  will  think 
of  it. 

S  That  great  mystery  of  Time,  were  there  no  other; 
the  illimitable,  silent,  never-resting  thing  called 
Time,  rolling,  rushing  on,  swift,  silent,  like  an  all- 
embracing  ocean-tide,  on  which  we  and  all  the  Uni- 
verse swim  like  exhalations,  like  apparitions  which 
are,  and  then  are  not:  this  is  for  ever  very  literally  a 
miracle;  a  thing  to  strike  us  dumb, — for  we  have  no 
word  to  speak  about  it.;  This  Universe,  ah  me! — 
what  could  the  wild  man  know  of  it;  what  can  we 
yet  know?  That  it  is  a  Force,  and  thousandfold 
Complexity  of  Forces;  a  Force  which  is  not  we.  That 
is  all;  it  is  not  we,  it  is  altogether  different  from  us. 
«'  Force,  Force,  every  where  Force;  we  ourselves  a 
mysterious  Force  in  the  centre  of  that.t  "There  is 
not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  high-way  but  has  Force  in  it; 
how  else  could  it  rot?  Nay  surely,  to  the  Atheistic 
Thinker,  if  such  a  one  were  possible,  it  must  be  a 
miracle  too,  this  huge  illimitable  whirlwind  of  Force, 
which  envelops  us  here;  never-resting  whirlwind, 
high  as  Immensity,  old  as  Eternity. >.  What  is  it? 
God's  Creation,  the  religious  people  answer;  it  is  the 
Almighty  God's!  Atheistic  science  babbles  poorly 
of  it,  with  scientific  nomenclatures,  experiments,  and 
what  not,  as  if  it  were  a  poor  dead  thing,  to  be  bottled 
up  in  Leyden  jars,  and  sold  over  counters:  but  the 
natural  sense  of  man,  in  all  times,  if  he  will  honestly 
apply  his  sense,  proclaims  it  to  be  a  living  thing, — 
,ah,  an  unspeakable,  godlike  thing;  towards  which 
the  best  attitude  for  us,  after  never  so  much  science, 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  15 

is  awe,  devout  prostration,  and    humility    of  soul; 
worship  if  not  in  words,  then  in  silence. 

But  now  I  remark  farther:  What  in  such  a  time  as 
ours  it  requires  a  Prophet  or  Poet  to  teach  us,  namely, 
the  stripping  off  of  those  poor  undevout  wrappages, 
nomenclatures,  and  scientific  hearsays, — this,  the  an- 
cient earnest  soul,  as  yet  unencumbered  with  these 
things,  did  for  itself.  The  world,  which  is  now  divine 
only  to  the  gifted,  was  then  divine  to  whosoever 
would  turn  his  eye  upon  it.  He  stood  bare  before  it 
face  to  face.  "AH  was  Godlike  or  God:" — Jean  Paul 
still  finds  it  so;  the  giant  Jean  Paul,  who  has  power 
to  escape  out  of  hearsays:  but  then  there  were  no 
hearsays.  Canopus  shining  down  over  the  dej^j 
with  its  blue  diamond  brightness,  (that  wild  blue 
spirit-like  brightness,  far  brighter  than  we  ever  wit- 
ness here,)  would  pierce  into  the  heart  of  the  wild 
Ishmaelitish  man,  whom  it  was  guiding  through  the 
solitary  waste  there.  :To  his  wild  heart,  with  all  feel- 
ings in  it,  with  no  speech  for  any  feeling,*  it  might 
seem  a  little  eye,  that  Canopus,  glancing  out  on  him 
from  the  great  deep  Eternity;  revealing  the  inner 
Splendour  to  him.  Cannot  we  understand  how  these 
men  worshipped  Canopus;  became  what  we  call 
Sabeans,  worshipping  the  stars?  Such  is  to  me  the 
secret  of  all  forms  of  Paganism.  Worship  is  tran- 
scendent wonder;  wonder  for  which  there  is  now  no 
limit  or  measure;  that  is  worship.  To  these  primeval 
men,  all  things  and  every  thing  they  saw  exist  beside 
them  were  an  emblem  of  the  Godlike,  of  some  God. 
And  look  what  perennial  fibre  of  truth  was  in  that. 
To  us  also,  through  every  star,  through  every  blade 
of  grass,  is  not  a  God  made  visible,  if  we  will  open 
our  minds  and  eyes?     We  do  not  worship  in  that 


16  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

way  now:  but  is  it  not  reckoned  still  a  merit,  proof 
of  what  we  call  a  "poetic  nature/7  that  we  recognise 
how  every  object  has  a  divine  beauty  in  it;  how 
every  object  still  verily  is  "a  window  through  which 
we  may  look  into  infinitude  itself?"  He  that  can 
discern  the  loveliness  of  things,  we  call  him  Poet, 
Painter,  Man  of  Genius,  gifted,  loveable.  These  poor 
Sabeans  did  even  what  he  does, — in  their  own  fashion. 
That  they  did  it,  in  what  fashion  soever,  was  a  merit; 
better  than  what  the  entirely  stupid  man  did,  what 
the  horse  and  camel  did, — namely,  nothing! 

But  now  if  all  things  whatsoever  that  we  look  upon 
are  emblems  to  us  of  the  Highest  God,  I  add  that 
more  so  than  any  of  them  is  man  such  an  emblem. 
You  have  heard  of  St.  Chrysostom's  celebrated  saying, 
in  reference  to  the  Shekinah,  or  ark  of  Testimony, 
visible  Revelation  of  God,  among  the  Hebrews: — 
"The  true  Shekinah  is  Man!"  Yes,  it  is  even  so: 
this  is  no  vain  phrase;  it  is  veritably  so.  The  essence 
of  our  being,  the  mystery  in  us  that  calls  itself  "  I," 
— ah,  what  words  have  we  for  such  things? — is  a 
breath  of  heaven;  the  Highest  Being  reveals  himself 
in  man.  This  body,  these  faculties,  this  life  of  ours, 
is  it  not  all  as  a  vesture  for  that  Unnamed?  "  There 
is  but  one  temple  in  the  universe,"  says  the  devout 
Novalis,  "and  that  is  the  body  of  Man.  Nothing 
is  holier  than  that  high  form.  Bending  before 
men  is  a  reverence  done  to  this  Revelation  in  the 
Flesh.  We  touch  Heaven  when  we  lay  our  hand  on 
a  human  body  !"  This  sounds  much  like  a  mere 
flourish  of  rhetoric;  but  it  is  not  so.  If  well  medi- 
tated, it  will  turn  out  to  be  a  scientific  fact;  the  ex- 
pression, in  such  words  as  can  be  had,  of  the  actual 
truth  of  the  thing.     We  arc  the  miracle  of  miracles, — 


LECT.  I-  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  17 

the  great  inscrutable  mystery  of  God.  We  cannot 
understand  it,  we  know  not  how  to  speak  of  it;  but 
we  may  feel  and  know,  if  we  like,  that  it  is  verily  so. 
Well;  these  truths  were  once  more  readily  felt 
than  now.  The  young  generations  of  the  world,  who 
had  in  them  the  freshness  of  young  children,  and  yet 
the  depth  of  earnest  men,  who  did  not  think  that  they 
had  finished  off  all  things  in  Heaven  and  Earth  by 
merely  giving  them  scientific  names,  but  had  to  gaze 
direct  at  them  there,  with  awe  and  wonder:  they 
felt  better  what  of  divinity  is  in  man  and  Nature; — 
they,  without  being  mad,  could  worship  Nature,  and 
man  more  than  any  thing  else  in  Nature.  Worship, 
that  is,  as  I  said  above,  admire  without  limit:  this, 
in  the  full  use  of  their  faculties,  with  all  sincerity  of 
heart,  they  could  do.  I  consider  Hero-worship  to  be 
the  grand  modifying  element  in  that  ancient  system 
of  thought.  What  I  called  the  perplexed  jungle  of 
Paganism  sprang,  we  may  say,  out  of  many  roots; 
every  admiration,  adoration  of  a  star  or  natural  object, 
was  a  root  or  fibre  of  a  root;  but  Hero-worship  is  the 
deepest  root  of  all;  the  tap-root,  from  which  in  a  great 
degree  all  the  rest  were  nourished  and  grown. 

And  now  if  worship  even  of  a  star  had  some  mean- 
ing in  it,  how  much  more  might  that  of  a  Hero! 
Worship  of  a  Hero  is  transcendent  admiration  of  a 
Great  Man.  I  say  great  men  are  still  admirable;  I 
say  there  is,  at  bottom,  nothing  else  admirable!  !No 
nobler  feeling  than  this  of  admiration  for  one  higher 
than  himself  dwells  in  the  breast  of  man.'  It  is  to 
this  hour,  and  at  all  hours,  the  vivifying  influence  in 
man's  life:  Religion  I  find  stand  upon  it;  not  Pagan- 
ism only,  but  far  higher  and  truer  religions, — all 
religion  hitherto  known.  Hero-worship,  heartfelt, 
2 


18  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

prostrate  admiration,  submission,  burning,  bound- 
less, for  a  noblest  godlike  Form  of  Man, — is  not  that 
the  germ  of  Christianity  itself?  The  greatest  of  all 
Heroes  is  One — whom  we  do  not  name  here!  Let 
sacred  silence  meditate  that  sacred  matter;  you  will 
find  it  the  ultimate  perfection  of  a  principle  extant 
throughout  man's  whole  history  on  earth. 

Or  coming  into  lower,  less  tmspeakable  provinces, 
is  not  all  Loyalty  akin  to  religious  Faith  also?  Faith 
is  loyalty  to  some  inspired  Teacher,  some  spiritual 
Hero.  And  what  therefore  is  loyalty  proper,  the 
life-breath  of  all  society,  but  an  effluence  of  Hero- 
worship,  submissive  admiration  for  the  truly  great? 
Society  is  founded  on  Hero-worship.  All  dignities  of 
rank,  on  which  human  association  rests,  are  what  we 
may  call  a  Hero-arehy  (Government  of  Heroes,) — or 
a  Hierarchy,  for  it  is  "  sacred  "  enough  withal!  The 
Duke  means  Dux,  Leader;  King  is  Konning,  Kan- 
rang,  Man  that  knows  or  cans.  Society  every  where 
is  some  representation,  not  msupportably  inaccurate, 
of  a  graduated  Worship  of  Heroes;  reverence  and 
obedience  done  to  men  really  great  and  wTise.  Not 
^supportably  inaccurate,  I  say!  They  are  all  as 
bank-notes,  these  social  dignitaries,  all  representing 
gold; — and  several  of  them,  alas,  always  are  forged 
notes.  We  can  do  with  some  forged  false  notes; 
with  a  good  many  even :  but  not  with  all,  or  the  most 
of  them  forged! '.  No:  there  have  to  come  revolutions 
then;  cries  of  Democracy,  Liberty  and  Equality,  and 
I  know  not  what:  the  notes  being  all  false,  and  no 
gold  to  be  had  for  them,  people  take  to  crying  in  their 
despair  that  there  is  no  gold,  that  there  never  was 
any! — "  Gold,"  Hero-worship,  is  nevertheless,  as  it 
was  always  and  every  where,  and  cannot  cease  till 
man  himself  ceases.  • 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  19 

I  am  well  aware  that  in  these  days  Hero-worship, 
the  thing  I  call  Hero-worship,  professes  to  have  gone 
out,  and  finally  ceased.  This,  for  reasons  which  it 
will  be  worth  while  some  time  to  inquire  into,  is  an 
age  that  as  it  were  denies  the  existence  of  great  men; 
denies  the  desirableness  of  great  men.  Show  our 
critics  a  great  man,  a  Luther  for  example,  they  begin 
to  what  they  call  "account"  for  him;  not  to  worship 
him,  but  to  take  the  dimensions  of  him, — and  bring 
him  out  to  be  a  little  kind  of  man  !  He  was  the  "  crea- 
ture of  the  Time,"  they  say;  the  Time  called  him 
forth,  the  Time  did  every  thing,  he  nothing — but 
what  we  the  little  critic  could  have  done  too!  This 
seems  to  me  but  melancholy  work.  The  Time  call 
forth?  Alas,  we  have  known  Times  call  loudly 
enough  for  their  great  men;  but  not  find  him  when 
they  called!  He  was  not  there;  Providence  had  not 
sent  him;  the  Time,  calling  its  loudest,  had  to  go 
down  to  confusion  and  wreck  because  he  would  not 
come  when  called.  For  if  we  will  think  of  it,  no 
Time  need  have  gone  to  ruin,  could  it  have  found  a 
man  great  enough,  a  man  wise  and  good  enough: 
wisdom  to  discern  truly  what  the  Time  wanted,  va- 
lour to  lead  it  on  the  right  road  thither;  These  are 
the  salvation  of  any  Time.  But  1  liken  common 
languid  Times,  with  their  unbelief,  distress,  perplex- 
ity, with  their  languid  doubting  characters  and  em- 
barrassed circumstances,  impotently  crumbling  down 
into  ever  worse  distress  towards  final  ruin;  all  this 
I  liken  to  dry  dead  fuel^ waiting  for  the  lightning  out 
of  Heaven  that  shall  kindle  it. ',  The  great  man,  with 
his  free  force  direct  out  of  God's  own  hand,  is  the 
lightning.  *»  His  word  is  the  wise  healing  word  which 
all  can  believe  in.     All  blazes  round  him  now,  when 


20  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

he  has  once  struck  on  it,  into  fire  like  his  own.  The 
dry  mouldering  sticks  are  thought  to  have  called  him 
forth.  They  did  want  him  greatly;  but  as  to  calling 
him  forth  — ! — Those  are  critics  of  small  vision,  I 
think,  who  cry:  "See,  is  it  not  the  sticks  that  made 
the  fire?"  No  sadder  proof  can  be  given  by  a  man 
of  his  own  littleness  than  disbelief  in  great  men. 
There  is  no  sadder  symptom  of  a  generation  than 
such  general  blindness  to  the  spiritual  lightning,  with 
faith  only  in  the  heap  of  barren  dead  fuel.  It  is  the 
last  consummation  of  unbelief.  In  all  epochs  of  the 
world's  history,  we  shall  find  the  Great  Man  to  have 
been  the  indispensable  saviour  of  his  epoch; — the 
lightning,  without  which  the  fuel  never  would  have 
burnt.  The  History  of  the  World,  I  said  already, 
was  the  Biography  of  Great  Men. 

Such  small  critics  do  what  they  can  to  promote 
unbelief  and  universal  spiritual  paralysis;  but  hap- 
pily they  cannot  always  completely  succeed.  In  all 
times  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  rise  great  enough  to 
feel  that  they  and  their  doctrines  are  chimeras  and 
cobwebs.  And  what  is  notable,  in  no  time  whatever 
can  they  entirely  eradicate  out  of  living  men's  hearts 
a  certain  altogether  peculiar  reverence  for  Great 
Men;  genuine  admiration,  loyalty,  adoration,  how- 
ever dim  and  perverted  it  may  be.  Hero-worship 
endures  for  ever  while  man  endures.  Bos  well  vene- 
rates his  Johnson,  right  truly  even  in  the  Eighteenth 
century.  ',  The  unbelieving  French  believe  in  their 
Voltaire;  and  burst  out  round  him  into  very  curious 
Hero-worship,  in  that  last  act  of  his  life,  when  they 
"stifle  him  under  roses.'V  It  has  always  seemed  to 
me  extremely  curious  this  of  Voltaire.  Truly,  if 
Christianity  be  the  highest  instance  of  Hero-worship, 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  21 

then  we  may  find  here  in  Voltairism  one  of  the  low- 
est! He  whose  life  was  that  of  a  kind  of  Antichrist, 
does  again  on  this  side  exhibit  a  curious  contrast.  No 
people  ever  were  so  little  prone  to  admire  at  all  as 
those  French  of  Voltaire.  Persiflage  was  the  charac- 
ter of  their  whole  mind;  adoration  had  nowhere  a 
place  in  it.  Yet  see !  The  old  man  of  Ferney  comes 
up  to  Paris;  an  old,  tottering,  infirm  man  of  eighty- 
four  years.  They  feel  that  he  too  is  a  kind  of  Hero; 
that  he  has  spent  his  life  in  opposing  error  and  injus- 
tice, delivering  Calases,  unmasking  hypocrites  in 
high  places; — in  short  that  he  too,  though  in  a  strange 
way,  has  fought  like  a  valiant  man.  They  feel  withal 
that,  if  persiflage  be  the  great  thing,  there  never  was 
such  a  persifleur.  He  is  the  realized  ideal  of  every 
one  of  them;  the  thing  they  are  all  wanting  to  be; 
of  all  Frenchmen  the  most  French. '  He  is  properly 
their  god, — such  god  as  they  are  fit  for.  Accord- 
ingly all  persons,  from  the  Queen  Antoinette  to  the 
Douanier  at  the  Porte  St.  Denis,  do  they  not  worship 
him?  People  of  quality  disguise  themselves  as 
tavern-waiters.  The  Maitre  de  Poste,  with  a  broad 
oath  orders  his  Postillion:  "  Va  bon  train;  thou  art 
driving  M.  de  Voltaire."  At  Paris  his  carriage  is  "  the 
nucleus  of  a  comet,  whose  train  fills  whole  streets." 
The  ladies  pluck  a  hair  or  two  from  his  fur,  to  keep 
it  as  a  sacred  relic.  There  was  nothing  highest, 
beautifullest,  noblest  in  all  France,  that  did  not  feel 
this  man  to  be  higher,  beautifuller,  nobler. 

Yes,  from  Norse  Odin  to  English  Samuel  Johnson 
from  the  divine  Founder  of  Christianity  to  the  wither- 
ed Pontiff  of  Encyclopedism,;in  all  times  and  places, 
the  Hero  has  been  worshipped. .'  It  will  ever  be  so.' 
We  all  love  great  men;  love,  venerate,  and  bow  down 
2* 


22  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

submissive  before  great  men:  nay,  can  we  Jionestly 
bow  down  to  any  thing  else?  Ah,  does  not  every 
true  man  feel  that  he  is  himself  made  higher  by  do- 
ing reverence  to  what  is  really  above  him?  No 
nobler  or  more  blessed  feeling  dwells  in  man's  heart/ 
-.  And  to  me  it  is  very  cheering  to  consider  that  no 
skeptical  logic,  or  general  triviality,  insincerity,  and 
aridity  of  any  Time  and  its  influences  can  destroy 
this  noble  in-born  loyalty  and  worship  that  Ls  in  man: 
In  times  of  unbelief,  which  soon  have  to  become  times 
of  revolution,  much  down-rushing,  sorrowful  decay 
and  ruin  is  visible  to  every  body.  For  myself  in 
these  days,  I  seem  to  see  in  this  indestructibility  of 
Hero-worship  the  everlasting  adamant  lower  than 
which  the  confused  wreck  of  revolutionary  things 
cannot  fall.  The  confused  wreck  of  things,  crumb- 
ling and  even  crashing  and  tumbling  all  round  us  in 
these  revolutionary  ages,  will  get  down  so  far;  no 
farther.  *  It  is  an  eternal  corner-stone,  from  which 
they  can  begin  to  build  themselves  up  again.,*  That 
man,  in  some  sense  or  other,  worships  Heroes;  that 
wre  all  of  us  reverence  and  must  ever  reverence  Great 
Men:  this  is,  to  me,  the  living  rock  amid  all  rushings 
down  whatsoever; — the  one  fixed  point  in  modern 
revolutionary  history,  otherwise  as  if  bottomless  and 
shoreless. 

So  much  of  truth,  only  under  an  ancient  obsolete 
vesture,  but  the  spirit  of  it  still  true,  do  1  find  in  the 
Paganism  of  old  nations.  Nature  is  still  divine,  the 
revelation  of  the  workings  of  God;  the  Hero  is  still 
worshipable:  this,  under  poor  cramped  incipient 
forms,  is  what  all  Pagan  religions  have  struggled,  as 
they  could,  to  set  forth.  I  think  Scandinavian  Pa- 
ganism, to  us  here  is  more  interesting  than  any  other. 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  23 

It  is,  for  one  thing,  the  latest;  it  continued  in  these 
regions  of  Europe  till  the  eleventh  century;  eight 
hundred  years  ago  the  Norwegians  were  still  wor- 
shippers of  Odin.  It  is  interesting  also  as  the  creed 
of  our  fathers;  the  men  whose  blood  still  runs  in 
our  veins,  whom  doubtless  we  still  resemble  in  so 
many  ways.  Strange:  they  did  believe  that,  while 
we  believe  so  differently.  Let  us  look  a  little  at  this 
poor  Norse  creed,  for  many  reasons.  We  have  tole- 
rable means  to  do  it;  for  there  is  another  point  of  in- 
terest in  these  Scandinavian  mythologies:  that  they 
have  been  preserved  so  well. 

In  that  strange  island  Iceland, — burst  up,  the  geolo- 
gists say,  by  fire  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea;  a  wild  land 
of  barrenness  and  lava;  swallowed  many  months  of 
every  year  in  black  tempests,  yet  with  a  wild  gleam- 
ing beauty  in  summer-time;  towering  up  there,  stern 
and  grim,  in  the  North  Ocean;  with  its  snow-jokuls, 
roaring  geysers,  sulphur  pools,  and  horrid  volcanic 
chasms,  like  the  waste  chaotic  battle-field  of  Frost 
and  Fire^'where  of  all  places  we  least  looked  for 
Literature  or  written  memorials,  the  record  of  tlieje 
things  was  written  down.  J  On  the  seaboard  of  this 
wild  land  is  a  rim  of  grassy  country,  where  cattle 
can  subsist,  and  men  by  means  of  them,  and  of  what 
the  sea  yields;  and  it  seems  they  were  poetic  men 
these,  men  who  had  deep  thoughts  in  them,  and  ut- 
tered musically  their  thoughts.  Much  would  be  lost 
had  Iceland  not  been  burst  up  from  the  sea,  not  been 
discovered  by  the  Northmen !  The  old  Norse  Poets 
were  many  of  them  natives  of  Iceland. 

Saemund,  one  of  the  early  Christian  Priests  there, 
who  perhaps  had  a  lingering  fondness  for  Paganism, 
collected  certain  of  their  old  Pagan  songs,  just  about 


24  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

becoming  obsolete  then, — Poems  or  Chants  of  a 
mythic,  prophetic,  mostly  all  of  a  religious  charac- 
ter: this  is  what  Norse  critics  call  the  Elder  or  Poetic 
Edda.  Edda,  a  word  of  uncertain  etymology,  is 
thought  to  signify  Ancestress.  Snorro  Sturleson,  an 
Iceland  gentleman,  an  extremely  notable  personage, 
educated  by  this  Saemund's  grandson,  took  in  hand 
next,  near  a  century  afterwards,  to  put  together, 
among  several  other  books  he  wrote,  a  kind  of  Prose 
Synopsis  of  the  whole  mythology;  elucidated  by  new 
fragments  of  traditionary  verse.  A  work  constructed 
really  with  great  ingenuity,  native  talent,  what  one 
might  call 'unconscious  art;  altogether  a  perspicuous 
clear  work,  pleasant  reading  still:  this  is  the  Younger 
or  prose  Edda.  ¥>y  these  and  the  numerous  other 
Sagas,  mostly  Icelandic,  with  the  commentaries, 
Icelandic  or  not,  which  go  on  zealously  in  the  North 
to  this  day,  it  is  possible  to  gain  some  direct  insight 
even  yet;  and  see  that  old  Norse  system  of  Belief,  as 
it  were,  face  to  face.  Let  us  forget  that  it  is  errone- 
ous Religion;  let  us  look  at  it  as  old  Thought,  and 
try  if  we  cannot  sympathize  with  it  somewhat. 

The  primary  characteristic  of  this  old  Northland 
-Mythology  I  find  to  be  Impersonation  of  the  visible 
workings  of  Nature.  Earnest  simple  recognition  of 
the  workings  of  Physical  Nature,  as  a  thing  wholly 
miraculous,  stupendous,  and  divine.  What  we  now 
lecture  of  as  Science,  they  wondered  at,  and  fell 
down  in  awe  before,  as  Religion.  The  dark  hostile 
Powers  of  Nature  they  figure  to  themselves  as  "Jo- 
tuns"  Giants,  huge  shaggy  beings  of  a  demoniac 
character.  Frost,  Fire,  Sea,  Tempest;  these  are 
Jotuns.  The  friendly  Powers  again,  as  Summer- 
heat,  the  Sun,  are  Gods.      The  empire  of  this  Uni- 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  25 

verse  is  divided  between  these  two;  they  dwell  apart, 
in  perennial  internecine  feud.  The  Gods  dwell  above 
in  Asgard,  the  Garden  of  the  Asen  or  Divinities; 
Jotunheim,  a  distant  dark  chaotic  land,  is  the  Home 
of  the  Jotuns. 

Curious  all  this;  and  not  idle  or  inane,  if  we  will 
look  at  the  foundation  of  it!  The  power  of  Fire,  or 
Flame,  for  instance,  which  we  designate  by  some 
trivial  chymical  name,  thereby  hiding  from  ourselves 
the  essential  character  of  wonder  that  dwells  in  it  as 
in  all  things,  is  with  these  old  Northmen,  Loke,  a 
most  swift  subtle  Demon,  of  the  brood  of  the  Jotuns. 
The  savages  of  the  Ladrone  Islands  too  (say  some 
Spanish  voyagers)  thought  Fire,  which  they  never 
had  seen  before,  was  a  devil  or  god,  that  bit  you 
sharply  when  you  touched  it,  and  lived  there  upon 
dry  wood.  From  us  too  no  chymistry,  if  it  had  not 
stupidity  to  help  it,  would  hide  that  Flame  is  a  won- 
der. What  is  Flame? — Frost  the  old  Norse  Seer 
discerns  to  be  a  monstrous  hoary  Jotun,  the  Giant 
Thrym,  Hrym,  or  Rime,  the  old  word  now  nearly 
obsolete  here,  but  still  used  in  Scotland  to  signify 
hoar-frost.  Rime  was  not  then  as  now  a  dead  chy- 
mical thing,  but  a  living  Jotun  or  Devil;  the  mon- 
strous Jotun  Rime  drove  home  his  horses  at  night,  sat 
"  combing  their  manes," — which  horses  were  Hail- 
clouds,  or  fleet  Frost-winds.  His  Cows — no,  not  his, 
but  a  kinsman's,  the  Giant  Hymir's  Cows  are  Ice- 
bergs: this  Hymir  (  looks  at  the  rock's'  with  his  devil- 
eye,  and  they  split  in  the  glance  of  it. 

Thunder  was  not  then  mere  Electricity,  vitreous 
or  resinous;  it  was  the  God  Donner  (Thunder)  or 
Thor, — God  also  of  beneficent  Summer-heat.  The 
thunder  was  his  wrath;  the  gathering  of  the  black 


26  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

clouds  is  the  drawing  down  of  Thor's  angry  brows; 
the  fire-bolt  bursting  out  of  Heaven  is  the  all-rend- 
ing Hammer  flung  from  the  hand  of  Thor:  he  urges 
his  loud  chariot  over  the  mountain-tops, — that  is  the 
peal:  wrathful  he  "blows  in  his  red  beard;"  that  is 
the  rustling  storm-blast  before  the  thunder  begin. 
Balder  again,  the  White  God,  the  beautiful,  the  just 
and  benignant,  (whom  the  early  Christian  Mission- 
aries found  to  resemble  Christ,)  is  the  Sun, — beauti- 
fullest  of  visible  things;  wondrous  too,  and  divine, 
still,  after  all  our  Astronomies  and  Almanacs!'  But 
perhaps  the  notablest  god  we  hear  tell  of  is  one  of 
whom  Grimm  the  German  Etymologist  finds  trace: 
the  God  Wtinsch,  or  Wish.  The  God  Wish;  who 
could  give  us  all  that  we  wished!  Is  not  this  the 
sincerest  and  yet  rudest  voice  of  the  spirit  of  man? 
The  rudest  ideal  that  man  ever  formed;  which  still 
shows  itself  in  the  latest  forms  of  our  spiritual  culture. 
Higher  considerations  have  to  teach  us  that  the  God 
Wish  is  not  the  true  God. 

Of  the  other  Gods  or  Jotuns  I  will  mention  only 
for  etymology's  sake,  that  Sea-tempest  is  the  Jotun 
Aegir  a  very  dangerous  Jotun;  and  now  to  this  day, 
on  our  river  Trent,  as  I  learn,  the  Nottingham  barge- 
men, when  the  River  is  in  a  certain  flooded  state,  (a 
kind  of  backwater,  or  eddying  swirl  it  has,  very  dan- 
gerous to  them,)  call  it  Eager  they  cry  out,  "Have 
a  care,  there  is  the  Eager  coming!"  Curious;  that 
word  surviving,  like  the  peak  of  a  submerged  world! 
The  oldest  Nottingham  bargemen  had  believed  in 
the  God  Aegir.  Indeed  our  English  blood  too  in  good 
part  is  Danish,  Norse;  or  rather,  at  bottom,  Danish 
and  Norse  and  Saxon  have  no  distinction,  except  a 
superficial  one, — as  of  Heathen  and  Christian,  or  the 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  27 

like.  But  all  over  our  Island  we  are  mingled  largely 
with  Danes  proper, — from  the  incessant  invasions 
there  were:  and  this,  of  course,  in  a  greater  propor- 
tion along  the  east  coast ;  and  greatest  of  all,  as  I  find, 
in  the  North  Country.  From  the  Humber  upwards, 
all  over  Scotland,  the  speech  of  the  common  people 
is  still  in  a  singular  degree  Icelandic;  its  Germanism 
has  still  a  peculiar  Norse  tinge.  They  too  are ci  Nor- 
mans," Northmen, — if  that  be  any  great  beauty! — 

Of  the  chief  god,  Odin,  we  shall  speak  by  and  by. 
Mark  at  present  so  much;  what  the  essence  of  Scan- 
dinavian and  indeed  of  all  Paganism  is:  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  forces  of  Nature  as  godlike,  stupendous 
personal  Agencies, — as  Gods  and  Demons.  Not 
inconceivable  to  us.  It  is  the  infant  Thought  of  man 
opening  itself,  with  awe  and  wonder,  on  this  ever- 
stupendous  Universe.  To  me  there  is  in  the  Norse 
System  something  very  genuine,  very  great  and  man- 
like. A  broad  simplicity,  rusticity,  so  very  different 
from  the  light  gracefulness  of  the  old  Greek  Pagan- 
ism, distinguishes  this  Scandinavian  System.  It  is 
Thought;  the  genuine  Thought  of  deep,  rude,  ear- 
nest minds,  fairly  opened  to  the  things  about  them ; 
a  face-to-faee  and  heart-to-heart  inspection  of  the 
things, — the  first  characteristic  of  all  good  Thought 
in  all  times.  Not  graceful  lightness,  half-sport,  as 
in  the  Greek  Paganism;  a  certain  homely  truthful- 
ness and  rustic  strength,; a  great  rude  sincerity,,  dis- 
closes itself  here.  It  is  strange,  after  our  beautiful 
Apollo  statues  and  clear  smiling  mythuses,  to  come 
down  upon  the  Norse  Gods  "brewing  ale"  to  hold 
their  feast  with  Aegir,  the  Sea-Jotun;  sending  out 
Thor  to  get  the  caldron  for  them  in  the  Jotun 
country;   Thor,    after    many    adventures,    clapping 


2S  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

the  Pot  on  his  head,  like  a  huge  hat,  and  walking 
off  with  it — quite  lost  in  it,  the  ears  of  the  Pot  reach- 
ing down  to  his  heels!  A  kind  of  vacant  hugeness, 
large,  awkward  gianthood,  characterizes  that  Norse 
System:  enormous  force,  as  yet  altogether  untutored, 
stalking  helpless  with  large  uncertain  strides.  Con- 
sider only  their  primary  mythus  of  the  Creation. 
The  Gods,  having  got  the  Giant  Ymer  slain,  a  Giant 
made  by  "  warm  winds  "  and  much  confused  work  out 
of  the  conflict  of  Frost  and  Fire, — determined  on 
constructing  a  world  with  him.  His  blood  made  the 
Sea;  his  flesh  was  the  Land,  the  Rocks  his  bones; 
of  his  eyebrows  they  formed  Asgard,  their  God's- 
dwelling;  his  skull  was  the  great  blue  vault  of  Im- 
mensity, and  the  brains  of  it  became  the  Clouds. 
What  a  Hyper-Brobdignagian  business!  Untamed 
Thought,  great,  giantlike,  enormous; — to  be  tamed 
in  due  time  into  the  compact  greatness,  not  giantlike, 
but  godlike  and  stronger  than  gianthood,  of  the 
Shakspeares,  the  Goethes! — Spiritually  as  well  as 
bodily  these  men  are  our  progenitors. 

I  like,  too,  that  representation  they  have  of  the 
Tree  Igdrasil.  All  Life  is  figured  by  them  as  a  Tree, 
lgdrasil,  the  Ash-tree  of  Existence,  has  its  roots  deep 
down  in  the  kingdoms  of  Hela  or  Death;  its  trunk 
reaches  up  heaven-high,  spreads  its  boughs  over  the 
whole  Universe:  it  is  the  Tree  of  Existence.  At  the 
foot  of  it,  in  the  Death-kingdom,  sit  Three  Nomas, 
Fates, — the  Past,  Present,  Future;  watering  its  roots 
from  the  Sacred  Well.  Its  "  boughs  v  with  their  bud- 
dings and  disleafings, — events,  things  suffered,  things 
done,  catastrophes, — stretch  through  all  lands  and 
times.  Is  not  every  leaf  of  it  a  biography,  every 
fibre  there  an  act  or  word?     Its  boughs  are  Histories 


LECT.   I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  29 

of  Nations.  The  rustle  of  it  is  the  noise  of  Human 
Existence,  onwards  from  of  old.  It  grows  there,  the 
breath  of  Human  passion  rustling  through  it; — or 
storm-tossed,  the  storm-wind  howling  through  it  like 
the  voice  of  all  the  gods.  It  is  Igdrasil,  the  Tree  of 
Existence.  It  is  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future; 
what  was  done,  what  is  doing,  what  will  be  done; 
"the  infinite  conjugation  of  the  verb  To  do."  Con- 
sidering how  human  things  circulate,  each  inextrica- 
bly in  communion  with  all, — how  the  word  I  speak  to 
you  to-day  is  borrowed,  not  from  Ulfila  the  Mcesogoth 
only,  but  from  all  men  since  the  first  man  began  to 
speak, — I  find  no  similitude  so  true  as  this  of  a  Tree. 
Beautiful;  altogether  beautiful  and  great.  The  "  Ma- 
chine of  the  Universe," — alas,  do  but  think  of  that  in 
contrast! 

Well,  it  is  strange  enough  this  old  Norse  view  of 
Nature;  different  enough  from  what  we  believe  of 
Nature.  Whence  it  specially  came,  one  would  not 
like  to  be  compelled  to  say  very  minutely!  One 
thing  we  may  say:  It  came  from  the  thoughts  of 
Norse  men; — from  the  thought,  above  all,  of  the  first 
Norse  man  who  had  an  original  power  of  thinking. 
The  first  Norse  "  man  of  genius,"  as  we  should  call 
him!  /  Innumerable  men  had  passed  by,  across  this 
Universe,  with  a  dumb  vague  wonder,  such  as  the 
very  animals  may  feel;  or  with  a  painful,  fruitlessly 
inquiring  wonder,  such  as  men  only  feel; — till  the 
great  Thinker  came,  the  original  man,  the  Seer;  ] 
whose  shaped  spoken  Thought  awakes  the  slumber- 
ing capability  of  all  into  thought.  It  is  ever  the  way 
with  the  Thinker,  the  spiritual  Hero.  What  he  says, 
all  men  were  not  far  from  saying,  were  longing  to 
3 


30  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY* 

say.  The  Thoughts  of  all  start  up,  as  from  painful 
enchanted  sleep,  round  his  Thought;  answering  to 
it,  Yes,  even  so!  Joyful  to  men  as  the  dawning  of 
clay  from  night; — is  it  not,  indeed,  the  awakening 
for  them  from  -no-being  into  being,  from  death  into 
life?  '  We  still  honour  such  a  man;  call  him  Poet, 
Genius  and  so  forth :  but  to  these  wild  men  he  was 
a  very  magician,  a  worker  of  miraculous  unexpected 
blessing  for  them;  a  Prophet,  a  God! — Thought 
once  awakened  does  not  again  slumber;  unfolds  it- 
self into  a  System  of  Thought;  grows,  in  man  after 
man,  generation  after  generation, — till  its  full  stature 
is  reached,  and  such  System  of  Thought  can  grow  no 
farther,  but  must  give  place  to  another. 

For  the  Norse  people,  the  man  now  named  Odin, 
and  Chief  Norse  God,  we  fancy,  was  such  a  man. 
A  Teacher,  and  Captain  of  soul  and  of  body;  a  Hero, 
of  worth  immeasurable;  admiration  for  whom  tran- 
scending the  known  bounds,  became  adoration.  Has 
he  not  the  power  of  articulate  Thinking;  and  many 
other  powers,  as  yet  miraculous?  So,  with  bound- 
less gratitude,  would  the  rude  Norse  heart  feel.  Has 
he  not  solved  for  them  the  Sphinx-enigma  of  this 
Universe;  given  assurance  to  them  of  their  own  des- 
tiny there?  By  him  they  know  now  what  they  have 
to  do  here,  what  to  look  for  hereafter.  Existence 
has  become  articulate,  melodious  by  him  ;  he  first  has 
made  Life  alive! — We  may  call  this  Odin  the  origin 
of  Norse  Mythology:  Odin,  or  whatever  name  the 
First  Norse  thinker  bore  while  he  was  a  man  among 
men.  His  view  of  the  Universe  once  promulgated, 
a  like  view  starts  into  being  in  all  minds;  grows, 
keeps  ever  growing,  while  it  continues  credible  there. 
In  all  miuds  it  lay  written,  but  invisibly,  as  in  sym~ 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  31 

pathetic  ink;  at  his  word  it  starts  into  visibility  in  all. 
Nay,  in  every  epoch  of  the  world,  the  great  event 
parent  of  all  others,  is  it  not  the  arrival  of  a  Thinker 
in  the  world! — 

One  other  thing  we  must  not  forget;  it  will  ex- 
plain a  little,  the  confusion  of  these  Norse  Eddas. 
They  are  not  one  coherent  System  of  Thought;  but 
properly  the  summation  of  several  successive  systems. 
All  this  of  the  old  Norse  Belief  which  is  flung  out 
for  us  in  one  level  of  distance  in  the  Edda,  like  a 
picture  painted  on  the  same  canvass,  does  not  at  all 
stand  so  in  the  reality.  It  stands  rather  at  all  man- 
ner of  distances  and  depths,  of  successive  generations 
since  the  Belief  first  began.  All  Scandinavian, think- 
ers, since  the  first  of  them,  contributed  to  that  Scan- 
dinavian System  of  thought;  in  ever  new  elaboration 
and  addition,  it  is  the  combined  work  of  them  all. 
What  history  it  had,  how  it  changed  from  shape  to 
shape,  by  one  thinker's  contribution  after  another, 
till  it  got  to  the  full  final  shape  we  see  it  under  in 
the  Edda,  no  man  will  now  ever  know:  its  Councils  of 
Trebisond,  Councils  of  Trent,  Athanasiuses,  Dantes, 
Luthers,  are  sunk  without  echo  in  the  dark  night! 
Only  that  it  had  such  a  history  we  can  all  know. 
Wheresoever  a  thinker  appeared,  there  in  the  thing 
he  thought  of  was  a  contribution,  accession,  a  change 
or  revolution  made.  Alas,  the  grandest  "revolution" 
of  all,  the  one  made  by  the  man  Odin  himself,  is  not 
this  too  sunk  for  us  like  the  rest!  Of  Odin  was  his- 
tory? Strange  rather  to  reflect  that  he  had  a  history! 
That  this  Odin,  in  his  wild  Norse  vesture,  with  his 
wild  beard  and  eyes,  his  rude  Norse  speech  and  ways, 
was  a  man  like  us;  with  our  sorrows,  joys,  with  our 
limbs,  features; — intrinsically  all  one  as  we;  and  did 


32  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

such  a  work!  But  the  work,  much  of  it,  has  pe- 
rished; the  worker,  all  to  the  name.  "  Wednesday," 
men  will  say,  to-morrow:  Odin's  day!  Of  Odin  there 
exists  no  history:  no  document  of  it;  no  guess  about 
it  worth  repeating. 

Snorro  indeed,  in  the  quietest  manner,  almost  in  a 
brief  business  style,  writes  down  in  his  Heimskringla, 
how  Odin  was  a  heroic  Prince,  in  the  black-Sea  region, 
with  Twelve  Peers,  and  a  great  people  straitened  for 
room.  How  he  led  these  Asen  (Asiatics)  of  his  out 
of  Asia;  settled  them  in  the  North  parts  of  Europe, 
by  warlike  conquest;  invented  Letters,  Poetry,  and 
so  forth, — and  came  by  and  by  to  be  worshipped  as 
Chief  God  by  these  Scandinavians,  his  Twelve  Peers 
made  into  Twelve  Sons  of  his  own,  Gods  like  him- 
self: Snorro  has  no  doubt  of  this.  Saxo  Grammaticus. 
a  very  curious  Northman  of  that  same  century,  is  still 
more  unhesitating;  scruples  not  to  find  out  an  histo- 
rical fact  in  every  individual  my  thus,  and  writes  it 
down  as  a  terrestrial  event  in  Denmark  or  elsewhere. 
Torfaeus,  learned  and  cautious,  some  centuries  later, 
assigns  by  calculation  a  dale  for  it:  Odin,  he  says, 
came  into  Europe  about  the  Year  70  before  Christ. 
Of  all  which,  as  grounded  on  mere  uncertainties, 
found  to  be  untenable  now,  I  need  say  nothing. 
Far,  very  far  beyond  the  Year  70 !  Odin's  date,  ad- 
ventures, whole  terrestrial  history,  figure  and  en- 
vironment, are  sunk  from  us  for  ever  into  unknown 
thousands  of  years. 

Nay,  Grimm,  the  German  Antiquary,  goes  so  far 
as  to  deny  that  any  man  Odin  ever  existed.  He 
proves  it  by  Etymology.  The  word  Wuotan,  which 
is  the  original  form  of  Odin,  a  word  spread,  as  name 
of  their  chief  Divinity,  over  all  the  Teutonic  Nations 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  33 

every  where;  this  word,  which  connects  itself,  ac- 
cording to  Grimm,  with^the  Latin  vadere,  with  the 
English  wade  and  such  like, — means  primarilv  Move- 
ment, Source  of  Movement,^Power;  and  is  the  fit 
name  of  the  highest  god,  not  of  any  man.  The  word 
signifies  Divinity,  he  says,  among  the  old  Saxon, 
German,  and  all  Teutonic  Nations;  the  adjectives 
formed  from  it  all  signify  divine,  supreme,  or  some- 
thing pertaining  to  the  chief  god.  Like  enough!  We 
must  bow  to  Grimm  in  matters  etymological.  Let 
us  consider  it  fixed  that  Wuotan,  means  Wading,  force 
of  Movement.  And  now  still,  what  hinders  it  from 
being  the  name  of  a  Heroic  Man  and  Mover,  as  well 
as  of  a  god  ?  As  for  the  adjectives,  and  words  formed 
from  it, — did  not  the  Spaniards  in  their  universal  ad- 
miration for  Lope,  get  into  the  habit  of  saying  i  a 
Lope  flower,'  <  a  Lope  dama,'  if  the  flower  or  woman 
were  of  surpassing  beauty  ?  Had  this  lasted,  Lope 
wTould  have  grown,  in  Spain,  to  be  an  adjective  sig- 
nifying godlike  also.  Indeed  Adam  Smith,  in  his 
Essay  on  Language,  surmises  that  all  adjectives  what- 
soever were  formed  precisely  in  that  way :  some  very 
green  thing,  chiefly  notable  for  its  greenness,  got  the 
appellative  name  Green,  and  the  next  thing  remarka- 
ble for  that  quality,  a  tree  for  instance,  was  named 
the  green  tree, — as  we  will  say  '  the  steam  coach,' 
{ four-horse  coach,'  or  the  like.  All  primary  adjec- 
tives, according  to  Smith,  were  formed  in  this  way; 
were  at  first  substantives  and  things.  We  cannot 
annihilate  a  man  for  etymologies  like  that!  Surely 
there  was  a  First  Teacher  and  Captain ;  surely  there 
must  have  been  an  Odin,  palpable  to  the  sense  at  one 
time;  no  adjective,  but  a  real  Hero  of  flesh  and  blood! 
The  voice  of  all  tradition,  history  or  echo  of  history, 
.3* 


34  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

* 

agrees  with  all  that  thought  will  teach  one  about  it, 
to  assure  us  of  this. 

How  the  man  Odin  came  to  be  considered  a  vod, 
the  chief  god  ? — that  surely  is  a  question  which  no- 
body would  wish  to  dogmatize  upon.  I  have  said, 
his  people  knew  no  limits  to  their  admiration  of  him; 
they  had  as  yet  no  scale  to  measure  admiration  by. 
Fancy  your  own  generous  heart's-loveof  some  greatest 
man  expanding  till  it  transcended  all  bounds,  till  it 
filled  and  overflowed  the  whole  field  of  your  thought! 
Or  what  if  this  man  Odin, — since  a  great  deep  soul, 
with  the  afflatus  and  mysterious  tide  of  vision  and 
impulse  rushing  on  him  he  knows  not  whence,  is 
ever  an  enigma,  a  kind  of  terror  and  wonder  to  him- 
self,— should  have  felt  that  perhaps  he  was  divine; 
that  he  was  some  effluence  of  the  "  Wuotan,"  "Move- 
ment" Supreme  Power  and  Divinity,  of  whom  to  his 
rapt  vision  all  Nature  was  the  awful  Flame-image; 
that  some  effluence  of  JVuotan  dwelt  here  in  him! 
He  was  not  necessarily  false;  he  was  but  mistaken, 
speaking  the  truest  he  knew.  ■  A  great  soul,  any  sin- 
cere soul,  knows  not  what  he  is, — alternates  between 
the  highest  height  and  the  lowest  depth;  can,  of  all 
things,  the  least  measure — Himself !'.  What  others 
take  him  for,  and  what  he  guesses  that  he  may  be; 
these  two  items  strangely  act  on  one  another,  help  to 
determine  one  another.  With  all  men  reverently 
admiring  him;  with  his  own  wTild  soul  full  of  noble 
ardours  and  affections,  of  whirlwind  chaotic  darkness 
and  glorious  new  light;  a  divine  Universe  bursting 
all  into  godlike  beauty  around  him,  and  no  man  to 
whom  the  like  ever  had  befallen,  what  could  he  think 
himself  to  be?  "Wuotan?"  All  men  answered, 
"Wuotan!"— 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  35 

And  then  consider  what  mere  Time  will  do  in  such 
cases;  how  if  a  man  was  great  while  living,  he  be- 
comes tenfold  greater  when  dead.  What  an  enor- 
mous earner a-obscnr a  magnifier  is  Tradition !  •  How  a 
thing  grows  in  the  human  Memory,  in  the  human 
Imagination,  when  love,  worship,  and  ajj  that  lies  in 
the  human  Heart,  is  there  to  encourage  it*  And  in 
the  darkness,  in  the  entire  ignorance;  without  date 
or  document,  no  book,  no  Arundel-marble;  only  here 
and  there  some  dumb  monumental  cairn.  Why,  in 
thirty  or  forty  years,  were  there  no  books,  any  great 
man  would  grow  mythic,  the  contemporaries,  who 
had  seen  him,  being  once  all  dead.  And  in  three 
hundred  years,  and  in  three  thousand  years — ! — To 
attempt  theorizing  on  such  matters  would  profit  little: 
they  are  matters  which  refuse  to  be  theoremed  and 
diagramed;  which  Logic  ought  to  know  that  she 
cannot  speak  of.  ^Enough  for  us  to  discern,  far  in 
the  uttermost  distance,  some  gleam  as  of  a  small  real- 
light  shining  in  the  centre  of  that  enormous  camera- 
obscura  image;  to  discern  that  the  centre  of  it  all  was 
not  a  madness  and  nothing,  but  a  sanity  and  some- 
thing. . 

This  light,  kindled  in  the  great  dark  vortex  of  the 
Norse  Mind,  dark  but  living,  waiting  only  for  light; 
this  is  to  me  the  centre  of  the  whole.  How  such  light 
will  then  shine  out,  and  with  wondrous  thousandfold 
expansion  spread  itself,  in  forms  and  colours,  depends 
not  on  it,  so  much  as  on  the  National  Mind  recipient 
of  it.  The  colours  and  forms  of  your  light  will  be 
those  of  the  cut-glass  it  has  to  shine  through. — Curi- 
ous to  think  how,  for  every  man,  any  the  truest  fact 
is  modelled  by  the  nature  of  the  man !  I  said,  The 
.earnest  man,  speaking  to  his  brother  men,  must  al- 


36  THE   HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

ways  have  stated  what  seemed  to  him  a  fact,  a  real 
Appearance  of  nature.  But  the  way  in  which  such 
Appearance  or  fact  shaped  itself, — what  sort  of  fact 
it  became  for  him, — was  and  is  modified  by  his  own 
laws  of  thinking;! deep,  subtle,  but  universal,  ever- 
operating  laws.*  The  world  of  nature,  for  every  man, 
is  the  Fantasy  of  Himself;  this  world  is  the  multiplex 
"Image  of  his  own  Dream."  Who  knows  to  what 
unnameable  subtleties  of  spiritual  law  all  these  Pagan 
Fables  owe  their  shape!  The  number  Twelve,  di- 
visiblest  of  all,  which  could  be  halved,  quartered, 
parted  into  three,  into  six,  the  most  remarkable  num- 
ber,— this  was  enough  to  determine  the  Signs  of  the 
Zodiac,  the  number  of  Odin's  Sons,  and  innumerable 
other  Twelves.  Any  vague  rumour  of  number  had  a 
tendency  to  settle  itself  into  Twelve.  So  with  regard 
to  every  other  matter.  And  quite  unconsciously  too, 
— with  no  notion  of  building  up  "Allegories  !"  But 
the  fresh  clear  glance  of  those  First  Ages  would  be 
prompt  in  discerning  the  secret  relations  of  things, 
and  wholly  open  to  obey  these.  Schiller  finds  in 
the  Cestus  of  Venus  an  everlasting  aesthetic  truth  as 
to  the  nature  of  all  Beauty;  curious: — but  he  is  care- 
ful not  to  insinuate  that  the  old  Greek  Mythists  had 
any  notion  of  lecturing  about  the  "  Philosophy  of 

Criticism  !" On  the  whole,  we  must  leave  those 

boundless  regions.  Cannot  we  conceive  that  Odin 
was  a  reality?  Error  indeed,  error  enough:  but  sheer 
falsehood,  idle  fables,  allegory  aforethought, — we  will 
not  believe  that  our  Fathers  believed  in  these. 

Odin's  Runes  are  a  significant  feature  of  him. 
Runes,  and  the  miracles  of  "magic"  he  worked  by 
them,  make  a  great  feature  in  tradition.     Runes  are 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  37 

the  Scandinavian  Alphabet;  suppose  Odin  to  have 
been  the  inventor  of  Letters,  as  well  as" magic/' 
among  that  people!  It  is  the  greatest  invention  man 
has  ever  made,  this  of  marking  down  the  unseen 
thought  that  is  in  him  by  written  characters.  It  is  a 
kind  of  second  speech,  almost  as  miraculous  as  the 
first.  You  remember  the  astonishment  and  incredu- 
lity of  Atahualpa  the  Peruvian  King;  how  he  made 
the  Spanish  Soldier  who  was  guarding  him  scratch 
Dios  on  his  thumb-nail,  that  he  might  try  the  next 
soldier  with  it,  to  ascertain  whether  such  a  miracle 
was  possible.  If  Odin  brought  letters  among  his 
people,  he  might  work  magic  enough  ! 

Writing  by  Runes  has  some  air  of  being  original 
among  the  Norsemen  ;  not  a  Phenician  Alphabet, 
but  a  native  Scandinavian  one.  Snorro  tells  us  far- 
ther that  Odin  invented  Poetry;  the  music  of  human 
speech,  as  well  as  that  miraculous  runic  marking  of 
it.  ;  Transport  yourselves  into  the  early  childhood  of 
nations;  the  first  beautiful  morning-light  of  our  Eu- 
rope, when  all  yet  lay  in  fresh  young  radiance  as  of 
a  great  sunrise,  and  our  Europe  was  first  beginning 
to  think,  to  be  !  Wonder,  hope;  infinite  radiance  of 
hope  and  wonder,  as  of  a  young  child's  thoughts,  in 
the  hearts  of  these  strong  men  !  Strong  sons  of 
Nature;  and  here  was  not  only  a  wild  Captain  and 
Fighter;  discerning  with  his  wild  flashing  eyes  what 
to  do,  with  his  wild  lion-heart  daring  and  doing  it; 
but  a  Poet  too,  all  that  we  mean  by  a  Poet,  Prophet, 
great  devout  Thinker  and  Inventor, — as  the  truly 
Great  Man  ever  is.  .'  A  Heroes  a  Hero  at  all  points;.- 
in  the  soul  and  thought  of  him  first  of  all.  This  Odin 
in  his  rude  semi-articulate  way,  had  a  word  to  speak. 
A  great  heart  laid  open  to  take  in  this  great  Universe, 


38  THE   HERO   AS  DIVINITY. 

and  man's  Life  here,  and  utter  a  great  word  about  it. 
A  Hero,  as  I  say,  in  his  own  rude  manner;;  a  wise, 
gifted,  noble-hearted  man.  *  And  now,  if  we  still  ad- 
mire such  a  man  beyond  all  others,  what  must  these 
wild  Norse  souls,  first  awakened  into  thinking,  have 
made  of  him!  To  them,  as  yet  without  names  for 
it,  he  was  noble  and  noblest;  Hero,  Prophet,  God; 
Wuotan  the  greatest  of  all.  Thought  is  Thought, 
howsoever  it  speak  or  spell  itself.  Intrinsically,  I 
conjecture,  this  Odin  must  have  been  of  the  same 
sort  of  stuff  as  the  greatest  kind  of  men.  A  great 
thought  in  the  wild  deep  heart  of  him!  The  rough 
words  he  articulated,  are  they  not  the  rudimental 
roots  of  these  English  words  we  still  use?  •  He 
worked  so  in  that  obscure  element.  But  he  was  as 
a  light  kindled  into  it;  a  light  of  intellect,  rude  No- 
bleness of  heart,  the  only  light  we  have  yet;  a  Hero, 
as  I  say:  and  he  had  to  shine  there,  and  make  his 
obscure  element  a  little  lighter, — as  is  still  the  task 
of  us  all.! 

We  will  fancy  him  to  be  the  Type-North-man: 
the  finest  Teuton  whom  that  race  had  yet  produced. 
The  rude  Norse  heart  burst  up  into  boundless  admira- 
tion round  him;  into  adoration.  He  is  as  a  root  of 
so  many  great  things;  the  fruit  of  him  is  found  grow- 
ing from  deep  thousands  of  years,  over  the  whole 
field  of  Teutonic  Life.  Our  own  Wednesday,  as  I 
said,  is  it  not  still  Odin's  day?  Wednesday,  Wans- 
horough,  Wanstead,  Wandsworth:  Odin  grew  into 
England  too,  these  are  still  leaves  from  that  root! 
He  was  the  Chief  God  to  all  the  Teutonic  Peoples; 
their  Pattern  Norseman,  in  such  way  did  they  admire 
their  Pattern  Northman;  that  was  the  fortune  he 
had  in  the  world. 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  39 

Thus  if  the  man  Odin  himself  have  vanished 
utterly,  there  is  this  huge  Shadow  of  him  which  still 
projects  itself  over  the  whole  History  of  his  People. 
For  this  Odin  once  admitted  to  be  God,  we  can  un- 
derstand well  that  the  whole  Scandinavian  Scheme 
of  Nature,  or  dim  No-scheme,  whatever  it  might  be- 
fore have  been,  would  now  begin  to  develop  itself 
altogether  differently,  and  grow  thenceforth  in  a 
new  manner.  What  this  Odin  saw  into,  and  taught 
with  his  runes  and  his  rhymes,  the  whole  Teutonic 
People  laid  to  heart  and  carried  forward.;  His  way 
of  thought  became  their  way  of  thought: — such, 
under  new  conditions,  is  the  history  of  every  great 
thinker  still.'  In  gigantic  confused  lineaments,  like 
some  enormous  camera-obscura  shadow  thrown  up- 
wards from  the  dead  deeps  of  the  Past,  and  covering 
the  whole  Northern  Heaven,  is  not  that  Scandina- 
vian Mythology  in  some  sort  the  Portraiture  of  this 
man  Odin?  The  gigantic  image  of  his  natural  face, 
legible  or  not  legible  there,  expanded  and  confused 
in  that  manner!  Ah,  Thought,  I  say,  is  always 
Thought.  No  great  man  lives  in  vain.  The  History 
of  the  world  is  but  the  Biography  of  great  men. 

To  me  there  is  something  very  touching  in  this 
primeval  figure  of  Heroism;  in  such  artless,  help- 
less, but  hearty  entire  reception  of  a  Hero  by  his 
fellow-men. ;  Never  so  helpless  in  shape,  it  is  the 
noblest  of  feelings,  and  a  feeling  in  some  shape  or 
other  perennial  as  man  himself.  If  I  could  show,  in 
any  measure,  what  I  feel  deeply  for  a  long  time  now, 
That  it  is  the  vital  element  of  manhood,  the  soul  of 
man's  history  here  in  our  world, — it  would  be  the 
chief  use  of  this  discoursing  at  present.  We  do  not 
now  call  our  great  men  Gods,  nor  admire  without 


40  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

limit;  ah  no,  wfth  limit  enough!:  But  if  we  have  no 
great  men,  or  do  not  admire  at  all, — that  were  a  still 
worse  case. 

The  poor  Scandinavian  Hero-worship,  that  whole 
Norse  way  of  looking  at  the  Universe,  and  adjusting 
oneself  there,  has  an  indestructible  merit  for  us.  A 
rude  child-like  way  of  recognising  the  divineness  of 
Nature,  the  divineness  of  Man;  most  rude,  yet  heart- 
felt, robust,  giantlike;  betokening  what  a  giant  of 
a  man  this  child  would  yet  grow  to!  It  was  a  truth, 
and  is  none.  *Ajt  is  not  as  the  half-dumb  stifled  voice 
of  the  long  buried  generations  of  our  own  Fathers, 
calling  out  of  the  depths  of  ages  to  us,  in  whose  veins 
their  blood  still  runs:  "  This  then,  this  is  what  we 
made  of  the  world:  this  is  all  the  image  and  notion 
we  could  form  to  ourselves  of  this  great  mystery  of  a 
Life  and  Universe.  J  Despise  it  not.  You  are  raised 
high  above  it,  to  large  free  scope  of  vision;  but  you 
too  are  not  yet  at  the  top.  No,  your  notion  too,  so 
much  enlarged,  is  but  a  partial,  imperfect  one;  that 
matter  is  a  thing  no  man  will  ever,  in  time  or  out  of 
time,  comprehend;  after  thousands  of  years  of  ever- 
new  expansion,  man  will  find  himself  but  struggling 
to  comprehend  again  a  part  of  it:  the  thing  is  larger 
than  man,  not  to  be  comprehended  by  him;  an  Infi- 
nite thing!" 

The  essence  of  the  Scandinavian,  as  indeed  of  all 
Pagan  Mythologies,  we  found  to  be  recognition  of  the 
divineness  of  Nature;  sincere  communion  of  man 
with  the  mysterious  invisible  Powers  v-isibly  seen  at 
work  in  the  world  round  him.  This,  I  should  say,  is 
more  sincerely  done  in  the  Scandinavian  than  in  any 
Mythology  I  know.     Sincerity  is  the  great  charac- 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  41 

teristic  of  it.  Superior  sincerity  (far  superior)  con- 
soles us  for  the  total  want  of  old  Grecian  grace. 
2  Sincerity,  I  think,  is  better  than  grace.  I  feel  that 
these  old  Northmen  were  looking  into  Nature  with 
open  eye  and  soul:  most  earnest,  honest;  childlike, 
and  yet  manlike;  with  a  great-hearted  simplicity 
and  depth  and  freshness,  in  a  true,  loving,  admiring, 
unfearing  way.  A  right  valiant,  true  old  race  of  men. 
Such  recognition  of  Nature  one  finds  to  be  the  chief 
element  of  Paganism:  recognition  of  Man  and  his 
Moral  Duty,  though  this  too  is  not  wanting,  comes  to 
be  the  chief  element  only  in  purer  forms  of  religion. 
Here,  indeed,  is  a  great  distinction  and  epoch  in 
Human  Beliefs;  a  great  landmark  in  the  religious 
development  of  Mankind.  Man  first  puts  himself  in 
relation  with  Nature  and  her  Powers,  wonders  and 
worships  over  those;  not  till  a  later  epoch  does  he 
discern  that  all  Power  is  Moral,  that  "the  grand  point 
is  the  distinction  for  him  of  Good  and  Evil,  of  Thou 
shall  and  Thou  shall  not.  * 

With  regard  to  all  these  fabulous  delineations  in 
the  Edda,  I  will  remark,  moreover,  as  indeed  was 
already  hinted,  that  most  probably  they  must  have 
been  of  much  newer  date;  most  probably,  even  from 
the  first,  were  comparatively  idle  for  the  old  Norse- 
men, and  as  it  were  a  kind  of  Poetic  sport.  Allegory 
and  Poetic  Delineation,  as  I  said  above,  cannot  be 
religious  Faith;  the  Faith  itself  must  first  be  there, 
then  Allegory  enough  will  gather  round  it,  as  the  fit 
body  round  its  soul.  The  Norse  Faith,  I  can  well 
suppose,  like  other  Faiths,  was  most  active  while  it 
lay  mainly  in  the  silent  state,  and  had  not  yet  much 
to  say  about  itself,  still  less  to  sing 

Among  those  shadowy  Edda  matters,  amid  all  that 
4 


48  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITI". 

fantastic  congeries  of  assertions,  and  traditions,  hi 
their  musical  Mythologies,  the  main  practical  belief 
a  man  could  have  was  probably  not  much  more  than 
this:  of  the  Valkyrs  and  the  Hall  of  Odin;  of  an 
inflexible  Destiny,  and  that  the  one  thing  needful  for 
a  man  was  to  be  brave.  The  Valkyrs  are  choosers  of 
the  Slain;  a  Destiny  inexorable,  which  it  is  useless 
trying  to  bend  or  soften,' has  appointed  who  is  to  be 
slain:  this  was  a  fundamental  point  for  the  Norse 
believer; — as  indeed  it  is  for  all  earnest  men  every 
where,  for  a  Mahomet,  a  Luther,  for  a  Napoleon  too.  ' 
It  lies  at  the  basis  this  for  every  such  man;  it  is  the 
woof  out  of  which  his  whole  system  of  thought  is 
woven.  The  Valkyrs;  and  then  that  these  Choosers 
lead  the  brave  to  a  heavenly  Hall  of  Odin;  only  the 
base  and  slavish  being  thrust  elsewhither,  into  the 
realms  of  Hela  the  Death-Goddess:  I  take  this  to 
have  been  the  soul  of  the  whole  Norse  Belief.  They 
understood  in  their  heart  that  it  was  indispensable  to 
be  brave;  that  Odin  would  have  no  favour  for  them, 
but  despise  and  thrust  them  out  if  they  were  not 
brave.  Consider  too  whether  there  is  not  something 
in  this  !  It  is  an  everlasting  duty,  valid  in  our  day  as 
in  that,  the  duty  of  being  brave.  Valour  is  still  value. 
The  first  duty  for  a  man  is  still  that  of  subduing  Fear. 
We  must  get  rid  of  Fear;  we  cannot  act  at  all  till 
then.  A  man's  acts  are  slavish,  not  true,  but  specious ; 
his  very  thoughts  are  false,  he  thinks  too  as  a  slave 
and  coward,  till  he  have  got  fear  under  his  feet. 
Odin's  creed,  if  we  disentangle  the  real  kernel  of  it,  is 
true  to  this  hour.  A  man  shall  and  must  be  valiant;  he 
must  march  forward,  and  quit  himself  like  a  man, — 
trusting  imperturbably  in  the  appointment  and  choice 
of  the  upper  Powers;  and  on  the  whole  not  fear  at  all. 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  43 

Now  and  always,  the  completeness  of  his  victory- 
over  Fear  will  determine  how  much  of  a  man  he  is. 

It  is  doubtless  very  savage  that  kind  of  valour  of 
the  old  Northmen.  Snorro  tells  us  they  thought  it 
a  shame  and  misery  not  to  die  in  battle;  and  if  natu- 
ral death  seemed  to  be  coming  on,  they  would  cut 
wounds  in  their  flesh,  that  Odin  might  receive  them 
as  warriors  slain.  Old  kings,  about  to  die,  had  their 
body  laid  into  a  ship;  the  ship  sent  forth,  with  sails 
set  and  slow  fire  burning  in  it;  that  once  out  at  sea, 
it  might  blaze  up  in  flame,  and  in  such  manner  bury 
worthily  the  old  hero,  at  once  in  the  sky  and  in  the 
ocean!  Wild,  bloody  valour;  yet  valour  of  its  kind ; 
better,  I  say,  than  none.  In  the  old  Sea-kings  too, 
what  an  indomitable  rugged  energy!  Silent,  with 
closed  lips,  as  I  fancy  them,  unconscious  that  they 
were  specially  brave;  defying  the  wild  ocean  with 
its  monsters,  and  all  men  and  things ; — progenitors  of 
our  own  Blakes  and  Nelsons.  No  Homer  sang  these 
Norse  Sea-Kings;  but  Agamemnon's  was  a  small  au- 
dacity, and  of  small  fruit  in  the  world,  to  some  of 
them ; — to  Hrolf's  of  Normandy,  for  instance!  Hrolf, 
or  Rollo,  Duke  of  Normandy,  the  wild  Sea-king,  has 
a  share  in  governing  England  at  this  hour. 

Nor  was  it  altogether  nothing,  even  that  wild  sea- 
roving  and  battling,  through  so  many  generations. 
It  needed  to  be  ascertained  which  was  the  strongest 
kind  of  men;  who  were  to  be  ruler  over  whom. 
Among  the  Northland  Sovereigns,  too,  I  find  some 
who  got  the  title  Wood  cutter;  Forest-felling  Kings. 
Much  lies  in  that.  I  suppose  at  bottom  many  of 
them  were  forest-fellers  as  well  as  fighters,  though 
the  Skalds  talk  mainly  of  the  latter, — misleading 
certain  critics  not  a  little;  for  no  nation  of  men  could 


44  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY". 

ever  live  by  fighting  alone;  there  could  not  produce 
enough  come  out  of  that!  I  suppose  the  right  good 
fighter  was  oftenest  also  the  right  good  forest-feller, — 
the  right  good  improver,  discerner.  doer  and  worker 
in  every  kind;  for  true  valour,  different  enough  from 
ferocity,  is  the  basis  of  all.  A  more  legitimate  kind 
of  valour  is  that;  showing  itself  against  the  untamed 
Forests  and  dark  brute  Powers  of  Nature,  to  conquer 
Nature  for  us.  In  the  same  direction  have  not  we 
their  descendants  since  carried  it  far?  May  such 
valour  last  for  ever  with  us ! 

That  the  man  Odin,  speaking  with  a  Hero's  voice 
and  heart,  with  an  impressiveness  out  of  Heaven, 
told  his  People  the  infinite  importance  of  Valour, 
how  man  thereby  became  a  god  ;  and  that  his  People, 
feeling  a  response  to  it  in  their  own  hearts,  believed 
this  message  of  his,  and  thought  it  a  message  out  of 
Heaven,  and  him  a  Divinity  for  telling  it  them:  this 
seems  to  me  the  primary  seed-grain  of  the  Norse  Reli- 
gion, from  which  all  manner  of  mythologies,  symbolic 
practices,  speculations,  allegories,  songs,  and  sages 
would  naturally  grow.  Grow, — how  strangely!  I 
called  it  a  small  light  shining  and  shaping  in  the 
huge  vortex  of  Norse  darkness.  Yet  the  darkness 
itself  was  alive;  consider  that.  It  was  the  eager  in- 
articulate uninstructed  Mind  of  the  whole  Norse 
People,  longing  only  to  become  articulate,  to  go  on 
articulating  ever  farther !  The  living  doctrine  grows, 
grows; — like  a  Banyan-tree;  the  first  seed  is  the  es- 
sential thing:  any  branch  strikes  itself  down  into  the 
earth,  becomes  a  new  root;  and  so,  in  endless  com- 
plexity, we  have  a  whole  wood,  a  whole  jungle,  one 
seed  the  parent  of  it  all.  Was  not  the  whole  Norse 
Religion,  accordingly,  in  some  sense,  what  we  called 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  45 

"  the  enormous  shadow  of  this  man's  likeness  ?"  Cri- 
tics trace  some  affinity  in  some  Norse  mythuses,  of 
the  Creation  and  such  like,  with  those  of  the  Hindoos. 
TheCow  Adumbla,  "licking  the  rime  from  the  rocks," 
has  a  kind  of  Hindoo  look.  A  Hindoo  Cow,  trans- 
ported into  frosty  countries.  Probably  enough;  in- 
deed we  may  say  undoubtedly,  these  things  will  have 
a  kindred  with  the  remotest  lands,  with  the  earliest 
times.  Thought  does  not  die,  but  only  is  changed. 
The  first  man  that  began  to  think  in  this  Planet  of 
ours,  he  was  the  beginner  of  all.  And  then  the 
second  man,  and  the  third  man; — nay  every  true 
Thinker  to  this  hour  is  a  kind  of  Odin,  teaches  men 
his  way  of  thought,  spreads  a  shadow  of  his  own 
likeness  over  sections  of  the  History  of  the  world. 

Of  the  distinctive  poetic  character  or  merit  of  this 
Norse  Mythology  I  have  not  room  to  speak;  nor  does 
it  concern  us  much.  Some  wild  Prophecies  we  have, 
as  the  Havamal  in.  the  Elder  Bddai  of  a  rapt,  earnest, 
sibylline  sort.  But  they  were  comparatively  an  idle 
adjunct  of  the  matter,  men  who  as  it  were  but  toyed 
with  the  matter,  these  later  Skalds;  and  it  is  their 
songs  chiefly  that  survive.  In  later  centuries,  I  sup- 
pose, they  would  go  on  singing,  poetically  symbo- 
lizing, as  our  modern  Painters  paint,  when  it  was  no 
longer  from  the  innermost  heart,  or  not  from  the  heart 
at  all.     This  is  every  where  to  be  well  kept  in  mind, 

Gray's  fragments  of  Norse  lore,  at  any  rate,  will 
give  one  no  notion  of  it; — any  more  than  Pope  will 
of  Homer.  It  is  no  square-built  gloomy  palace  of 
black  ashlar  marble,  shrouded  in  awe  and  horror,  as 
Gray  gives  it  us:  no;  rough  as  the  North  rocks,  as 
the  Iceland  deserts,  it  is;  with  a  heartiness,  homeli- 
4* 


46  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY, 

ness,  even  a  tint  of  good  humour  and  robust  mirth  in 
the  middle  of  these  fearful  things.  The  strong  old 
Norse  heart  did  not  go  upon  theatrical  sublimities; 
they  had  not  time  to  tremble.  I  like  much  their 
robust  simplicity;  their  veracity,  directness  of  con- 
ception. Thor  "draws  down  his  brows"  in  a  veritable 
Norse  rage;  ''grasps  his  hammer  till  the  knuckles  grow 
ichite"  Beautiful  traits  of  pity  too,  an  honest  pity. 
Balder  "the  white  God"  dies;  the  beautiful,  benig- 
nant; he  is  the  Sun-god.  They  try  all  nature  for  a 
remedy;  but  he  is  dead.  Frigga,  his  mother,  sends 
Hermode  to  seek  or  see  him:  nine  days  and  nine 
nights  he  rides,  through  gloomy  deep  valleys,  a  laby- 
rinth of  gloom;  arrives  at  the  Bridge  with  its  gold 
roof:  the  Keeper  says,  "Yes,  Balder  did  pass  here; 
but  the  Kingdom  of  the  Dead  is  down  yonder,  far 
towards  the  North."  Hermode  rides  on;  leaps  Hell- 
gate,  Hela's  gate;  does  see  Balder,  and  speaks  with 
him:  Balder  cannot  be  delivered.  Inexorable!  Hela 
will  not,  for  Odin  or  any  God,  give  him  up.  The 
beautiful  and  gentle  has  to  remain  there.  His  Wife 
had  volunteered  to  go  with  him,  to  die  with  him. 
They  shall  for  ever  remain  there.  He  sends  his  ring 
to  Odin;  Nanna  his  wife  sends  her  thimble  to  Frigga, 
as  a  remembrance. — Ah  me! — 

For  indeed  Valour  is  the  fountain  of  pity  too; — of 
Truth,  and  all  that  is  great  and  good  in  man.  The 
robust  homely  vigour  of  the  Norse  heart  attaches 
one  much,  in  these  delineations.  Is  it  not  a  trait  of 
right  honest  strength,  says  Uhland,  who  has  written 
a  fine  Essay  on  Thor,  that  the  old  Norse  heart  finds 
its  friend  in  the  Thunder-god?  That  it  is  not  fright- 
ened away  by  his  thunder;  but  finds  that  Summer- 
heat,  the  beautiful  noble  summer,  must  and  will  have 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO    AS  DIVINITY.  47 

thunder  withal !  The  Norse  heart  loves  this  Thor  and 
his  hammer-bolt;  sports  with  him.  Thor  is  Sum- 
mer-heat; the  god  of  Peaceable  Industry  as  well  as 
Thunder.  He  is  the  Peasant's  friend;  his  true  hench- 
man and  attendant  is  Thialfi,  Manual  Labour.  Thor 
himself  engages  in  all  manner  of  rough  manual  work, 
scorns  no  business  for  its  plebeianism;  is  ever  and 
anon  travelling  to  the  country  of  the  Jotuns,  harry- 
ing those  chaotic  Frost-monsters,  subduing  them,  at 
least  straightening  and  damaging  them.  There  is  a 
great  broad  humour  in  some  of  these  things. 

Thor,  as  we  saw  above,  goes  to  Jotun-land,  to  seek 
Hymir's  Caldron,  that  the  Gods  may  brew  beer. 
Hymir  the  huge  Giant  enters,  his  gray  beard  all  full 
of  hoar-frost;  splits  pillars  with  the  very  glance  of  his 
eye;  Thor,  after  much  rough  tumult,  snatches  the 
Pot,  claps  it  on  his  head;  the  "handles  of  it  reach 
down  to  his  heels."  The  Norse  Skald  has  a  kind  of 
loving  sport  with  Thor.  This  is  the  Hymir  whose 
cattle,  the  critics  have  discovered,  are  Ice-bergs. 
Huge  untutored  Brobdignag  genius, — needing  only 
to  be  tamed  '  down;  into  Shakspeares,  Dantes, 
Goethes !  It  is  all  gone  now,  that  old  Norse  work, 
. — Thor  the  Thunder-god  changed  into  Jack  the  Gi- 
ant-killer; but  the  mind  that  made  it  is  here  yet. 
How  strangely  things  grow,  and  die,  and  do  not  die! 
There  are  twigs  of  that  great  world-tree  of  Norse 
Belief,  still  curiously  traceable.  This  poor  Jack  of 
the  Nursery,  with  his  miraculous  shoes  of  swiftness, 
coat  of  darkness,  sword  of  sharpness,  he  is  one, 
Childe  Etin  in  the  Scottish  Ballads  is  a  Norse  my- 
thus;  Etin  was  a  Jotun.  Nay,  Shakspeare's  Hamlet 
is  a  twig  too  of  this  same  world-tree ;  there  seems  no 
doubt  of  that.     Hamlet,  Jlmleth,  I  find,  is  really  a 


48  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

mythic  personage;  and  his  Tragedy,  of  the  poisoned 
Father,  poisoned  asleep  by  drops  in  his  ear,  and  the 
rest,  is  a  Norse  my  thus !  Old  Saxo,  as  his  wont  was, 
made  it  a  Danish  history;  Shakspeare,  out  of  Saxo, 
made  it  what  we  see.  That  is  a  twig  of  the  world- 
tree  that  has  grown,  1  think; — by  nature  or  accident 
that  one  has  grown. 

In  fact,  these  old  Norse  songs  have  a  truth  in  them, 
an  inward  perennial  truth  and  greatness, — as,  indeed, 
all  must  have  that  can  very  long  preserve  itself  by 
tradition  alone.  It  is  a  greatness  not  of  mere  body 
and  gigantic  bulk,  but  a  rude  greatness  of  soul. 
There  is  a  sublime  uncomplaining  melancholy  trace- 
able in  these  old  hearts.  A  great  free  glance  into 
the  very  deeps  of  thought.  J  They  seem  to  have  seen, 
these  brave  old  Northmen,  what  Meditation  has 
taught  all  men  in  all  ages,  That  this  world  is  after 
all  but  a  show, — a  phenomenon  or  appearance,  no 
real  thing.  All  deep  souls  see  into  that, — the  Hindoo 
Mythologist,  the  German  Philosopher, — the  Shak- 
speare, the  earnest  Thinker  wherever  he  may  be: 

"We  are  such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made  of!" 

One  of  Thor's  expeditions,  to  Utgard  (the  Outer 
Garden,  central  seat  of  Jotun-land,)  is  remarkable 
in  this  respect.  Thialfi  was  with  him,  and  Loke. 
After  various  adventures,  they  entered  upon  Giant- 
land;  wandered  over  plains,  wild  uncultivated  places, 
among  stones  and  trees.  At  nightfall  they  noticed  a 
house;  and  as  the  door,  which  indeed  formed  one 
whole  side  of  the  house,  was  open,  they  entered.  It 
was  a  simple  habitation;  one  large  hall,  altogether 
empty.  They  stayed  there.  Suddenly  in  the  dead  of 
the  night,  loud  noises  alarmed  them.     Thor  grasped 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  49 

his  hammer;  stood  in  the  door,  prepared  for  fight. 
His  companions  within  ran  hither  and  thither  in  their 
terror,  seeking  some  outlet  in  that  rude  hall;  they 
found  a  little  closet  at  last,  and  took  refuge  there. 
Neither  had  Thor  any  battle:  for,  lo,  in  the  morning 
it  turned  out  that  the  noise  had  been  only  the  snoring 
of  a  certain  enormous  but  peaceable  Giant,  the  Giant 
Skrymir,  who  lay  peaceably  sleeping  near  by;  and 
this  that  they  took  for  a  house  was  merely  his  Glove, 
thrown  aside  there;  the  door  was  the  Glove-wrist;  the 
little  closet  they  had  fled  into  was  the  thumb!  Such 
a  glove; — I  remark  too  that  it  had  not  fingers  as  ours 
have,  but  only  a  thumb,  and  the  rest  undivided:  a 
most  ancient,  rustic  glove ! 

Skrymir  now  carried  their  portmanteau  all  day; 
Thor,  however,  had  his  own  suspicions,  did  not  like 
the  ways  of  Skrymir;  determined  at  night  to  put  an 
end  to  him  as  he  slept.  Raising  his  hammer,  he 
struck  down  into  the  Giant's  face  a  right  thunderbolt 
blow,  of  force  to  rend  rocks.  The  Giant  merely 
awoke;  rubbed  his  cheek,  and  said,  Did  a  leaf  fall? 
Again  Thor  struck,  so  soon  as  Skrymir  again  slept; 
a  better  blow  than  before ;  but  the  Giant  merely  mur- 
mured, Was  that  a  grain  of  sand  ?  Thor's  third 
stroke  was  with  both  his  hands  (the  "  knuckles  white" 
I  suppose,)  and  seemed  to  dint  deep  into  Skrymir's 
visage;  but  he  merely  checked  his  snore,  and  re- 
marked, There  must  be  sparrows  roosting  in  this  tree, 
I  think ;  what  is  it  they  have  dropped  ? — At  the  gate 
of  Utgard,  a  place  so  high,  that  you  had  to  "strain  your 
neck  bending  back  to  see  the  top  of  it,"  Skrymir  went 
his  ways.  Thor  and  his  companions  were  admitted; 
invited  to  take  share  in  the  games  going  on.  To  Thor, 
for  his  part,  they  handed  a  Drinking-horn 


50  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY. 

common  feat,  they  told  him,  to  drink  this  dry  at  one 
draught.  Long  and  fiercely,  three  times  over  Thor 
drank;  but  made  hardly  any  impression.  He  was  a 
weak  child,  they  told  him:  could  he  lift  that  Cat  he 
saw  there?  Small  as  the  feat  seemed,  Thor  with  his 
whole  godlike  strength  could  not;  he  bent  up  the 
creature's  back,  could  not  raise  its  feet  off  the  ground, 
could  at  the  utmost  raise  one  foot.  Why,  you  are  no 
man,  said  the  Utgard  people;  there  is  an  Old  Woman 
that  will  wrestle  you!  Thor,  heartily  ashamed,  seized 
his  haggard  Old  Woman;  but  could  not  throw  her. 

And  now  on  their  quitting  Utgard,  the  chief  Jotun 
escorting  them  politely  a  little  way,  said  to  Thor : 
"  You  are  beaten  then: — yet  be  not  so  much  ashamed; 
there  was  deception  of  appearance  in  it.  That  Horn 
you  tried  to  drink  was  the  Sea;  you  did  make  it  ebb; 
but  who  could  drink  that,  the  bottomless!  The  Cat 
you  would  have  lifted, — why,  that  is  the  Mldgard- 
snake,  the  great  World-serpent  which,  tail  in  mouth, 
girds  and  keeps  up  the  whole  created  world;  had  you 
torn  that  up,  the  world  must  have  rushed  to  ruin.  As 
for  the  Old  Woman,  she  was  Time,  Old  Age,  Dura- 
tion; with  her  what  can  wrestle?  No  man  or  no  god 
with  her;  gods  or  men,  she  prevails  over  all!  And 
then  those  three  strokes  you  struck, — look  at  these 
three  valleys;  your  three  strokes  made  these!"  Thor 
looked  at  his  attendant  Jotun:  it  was  Skrymir; — it 
was,  say  Norse  critics,  the  old  chaotic  rocky  Earth  in 
person,  and  that  glove-house  was  some  Earth-cavern! 
But  Skrymir  had  vanished;  Utgard  with  its  sky-high 
gates,  when  Thor  grasped  his  hammer  to  smite  thcm> 
had  gone  to  air;  only  the  Giant's  voice  was  heard 
mocking:  "Better  come  no  more  to  Jotunheim!" — 

This  is  of  the  allegoric  period,  as  we  see,  and  half 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  51 

play,  not  of  the  prophetic  and  entirely  devout :  but 
as  a  mythus,  is  there  not  real  antique  Norse  gold  in  it? 
More  true  metal,  rough  from  the  Mimer-stithy,  than 
in  many  a  famed  Greek  mythus  shaped  far  better!  A 
great  broad  Brobdignag  grin  of  true  humour  in  this 
Skrymir;  mirth  resting  on  earnestness  and  sadness, 
as  the  rainbow  on  the  black  tempest:  only  a  right 
valiant  heart  is  capable  of  that.  It  is  the  grim  humour 
of  our  own  Ben  Jonson,  rare  old  Ben;  runs  in  the 
blood  of  us,  I  fancy ;  for  one  catches  tones  of  it,  under 
a  still  other  shape,  out  of  the  American  Backwoods. 

That  is  also  a  very  striking  conception  that  of  the 
Ragnarok,  Consummation,  or  Twilight  of  the  Gods. 
It  is  in  the  Havamal  song;  seemingly  a  very  old, 
prophetic  idea.  The  Gods  and  Jotuns,  the  divine 
Powers  and  the  chaotic  brute  ones,  after  long  contest 
and  partial  victory  by  the  former,  meet  at  last  in  uni- 
versal world-embracing  wrestle  and  duel;  World- 
serpent  against  Thor,  strength  against  strength; 
mutually  extinctive;  and  ruin,  "twilight"  sinking 
into  darkness,  swallows  the  created  Universe.  The 
old  Universe  with  its  Gods  is  sunk;  but  it  is  not  final 
death  :  there  is  to  be  a  new  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth; 
a  higher  supreme  God,  and  Justice  to  reign  among 
men.  Curious  :  this  law  of  mutation,  which  also  is 
a  law  written  in  man's  inmost  thought,  had  been 
deciphered  by  these  old  earnest  Thinkers  in  their 
rude  style;  and  how,  though  all  dies,  and  even  gods 
die,  yet  all  death  is  but  a  Phoenix  fire-death,  and 
new-birth  into  the  Greater  and  the  Better!  It  is  the 
fundamental  Law  of  Being  for  a  creature  made  of 
Time,  living  in  this  Place  of  Hope.  All  earnest  men 
have  seen  into  it;  may  still  see  into  it. 

And  now,  connected  with  this,  let  us  glance  at  the 


52  THE  HERO  AS^  DIVINITY. 

last  my  thus  of  the  appearance  of  Thor;  and  end  there. 
I  fancy  it  to  be  the  latest  in  date  of  all  these  fables;  a 
sorrowing  protest  against  the  advance  of  Christian- 
it}'', — set  forth  reproachfully  by  some  Conservative 
Pagan.  King  Olaf  has  been  harshly  blamed  for  his 
over-zeal  in  introducing  Christianity;  surely  I  should 
have  blamed  him  far  more  for  an  under-zeal  in  that! 
He  paid  dear  enough  for  it;  he  died  by  the  revolt  of 
his  Pagan  people,  in  battle,  in  the  year  1033,  at 
Stickelstad,  near  that  Drontheim,  where  the  chief 
Cathedral  of  the  North  has  now  stood  for  many  cen- 
turies, dedicated  gratefully  to  his  memory  as  Saint 
Olaf.  The  mythus  about^Thor  is  to  this  effect.  King 
Olaf,  the  Christian  Reform  King,  is  sailing  with  fit 
escort  along  the  shore  of  Norway,  from  haven  to 
haven:  dispensing  justice,  or  doing  other  royal  work: 
on  leaving  a  certain  haven,  it  is  found  that  a  stranger, 
of  grave  eyes  and  aspect,  red  beard,  of  stately  robust 
figure  has  stepped  in.  The  courtiers  address  him ;  his 
answers  surprise  by  their  pertinency  and  depth :  at 
length  he  is  brought  to  the  King.  The  stranger's  con- 
versation here  is  not  less  remarkable,  as  they  sail 
along  the  beautiful  shore;  but  after  some  time,  he 
addresses  King  Olaf  thus:  "  Yes,  King  Olaf,  it  is  all 
beautiful,  with  the  sun  shining  on  it  there;  green, 
fruitful,  a  right  fair  home  for  you;  and  many  a  sore  day 
had  Thor,  many  a  wild  fight  with  the  rock  Jotuns,  be- 
fore he  could  make  it  so.  And  now  you  seem  minded 
to  put  away  Thor.  King  Olaf,  have  a  care!"  said  the 
stranger,  drawing  down  his  brows; — and  when  they 
looked  again,  he  was  nowhere  to  be  found. — This  is 
the  last  appearance  of  Thor  on  the  stage  of  this  world ! 
Do  we  not  see  well  enough  how  the  Fable  might 
arise,  without  unveracity  on  the  part  of  any  one:  it  is 


LECT.  I.  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY.  53 

the  way  most  Gods  have  come  to  appear  among  men: 
thus  if  in  Pindar's  time  "  Neptune  was  seen  once  at 
the  Nemean  Games,"  what  was  this  Neptune  too  but 
a  "  stranger  of  noble  grave  aspect," — Jit  to  be  "  seen!" 
There  is  something  pathetic,  tragic  for  me,  in  this  last 
voice  of  Paganism.  Thor  is  vanished,  the  whole 
Norse  world  has  vanished;  and  will  not  return  ever 
again.  In  like  fashion  to  that,  pass  away  the  high- 
est things.  All  things  that  have  been  in  this  world, 
all  things  that  are  or  will  be  in  it,  have  to  vanish:  we 
have  our  sad  farewell  to  give  them. 

That  Norse  Religion,  a  rude  but  earnest,  sternly 
impressive  Consecration  of  Valour,  (so  we  may  define 
it,)  suffice  for  these  old  valiant  Northmen.  Conse- 
cration of  Valour  is  not  a  bad  thing!  We  will  take  it 
for  good,  so  far  as  it  goes.  Neither  is  there  no  use  in 
knowing  something  about  this  old  Paganism  of  our 
Fathers.  Unconsciously,  and  combined  with  higher 
things,  it  is  in  us  yet,  that  Old  Faith  withal!  To 
know  it  consciously,  brings  us  into  closer  and  clearer 
relation  with  the  Past, — with  our  own  Possessions  in 
the  Past.  jjFor  the  whole  Past,  as  I  keep  repeating, 
is  the  possession  of  the  Present;  the  Past  had  always 
something  true,  and  is  a  precious  possession.  In  a 
different  time,  in  a  different  place,  it  is  always  some 
other  side  of  our  common  Human  Nature  that  has 
been  developing  itself.  The  actual  True  is  the  sum 
of  all  these;  not  any  one  of  them  by  itself  consti- 
tutes what  of  Human  Nature  is  hitherto  developed. 
Better  to  know  them  all  than  misknow  them.  "  To 
which  of  these  Three  Religions  do  you  especially  ad- 
here?" inquires  Meister  of  his  Teacher.  "  To  all  the 
Three!"  answers  the  other:  "To  all  the  Three;  for 
they  by  their  union  first  constitute  the  True  Religion." 
5 


LECTURE  II. 

[Friday,  8th  May,  1840.] 
THE    HERO    AS    PROPHET. MAHOMET!    ISLAM. 

From  the  first  rude  times  of  Paganism  among  the 
Scandinavians  of  the  North,  we  advance  to  a  very- 
different  epoch  of  religion,  among  a  very  different 
people;  Mahometan  ism  among  the  Arabs.  A  great 
change;  what  a  change  and  progress  is  indicated 
here,  in  the  universal  condition  and  thoughts  of  men! 

The  Hero  is  not  now  regarded  as  a  God  among  his 
fellow-men;  but  as  one  God-inspired,  as  a  Prophet. 
It  is  the  second  phasis  of  Hero-worship;  the  first  or 
oldest,  we  may  say,  has  passed  away  without  return; 
in  the  history  of  the  world  there  will  not  again  be  any 
man,  never  so  great,  whom  his  fellow-men  will  take 
for  a  god.  Nay  we  might  rationally  ask,  Did  any  set 
of  human  beings  ever  really  think  the  man  they  saw 
there  standing  beside  them  a  god,  the  maker  of  this 
world?  Perhaps  not:  it  was  usually  some  man  they 
remembered  or  had  seen.  But  neither  can  this,  any 
more,  be.  The  great  man  is  not  recognised  hence- 
forth as  a  god  any  more. 

It  was  a  rude  gross  error,  that  of  counting  the  Great 
Man  a  god.  Yet  let  us  say  that  it  is  at  all  times  diffi- 
cult to  know  what  he  is,  or  how  to  account  of  him 
and  receive  him!  The  most  significant  feature  in 
the  history  of  an  epoch  is  the  manner  it  has  of  wel- 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  55 

coining  a  Great  Man.  Ever,  to  the  true  instincts  of 
men,  there  is  something  godlike  in  him.  Whether 
they  shall  take  him  to  be  a  god,  to  be  a  prophet,  or 
what  they  shall  take  him  to  be?  that  is  ever  a  grand 
question;  by  their  way  of  answering  that,  we  shall 
see,  as  through  a  little  window,  into  the  heart  of 
these  men's  spiritual  condition.  For  at  bottom  the 
Great  Man,  as  he  comes  from  the  hand  of  Nature,  is 
ever  the  same  kind  of  thing:  Odin,  Luther,  Johnson, 
Burns;  I  hope  to  make  it  appear  that  these  are  all 
originally  of  one  stuff;  that  only  by  the  world's  re- 
ception of  them,  and  the  shapes  they  assume,  are 
they  so  immeasurably  diverse.  The  worship  of  Odin 
astonishes  us, — to  fall  prostrate  before  the  great  Man, 
into  deliquium  of  love  and  wonder  over  him,  and  feel 
in  their  heart  that  he  was  a  denizen  of  the  skies,  a 
god!  This  was  imperfect  enough:  but  to  welcome, 
for  example,  a  Burns  as  we  did,  was  that  what  we 
can  call  perfect?  The  most  precious  gift  that  Heaven 
can  give  to  the  Earth;  a  man  of  " genius"  as  we  call 
it;  the  soul  of  a  man  actually  sent  down  from  the 
skies  with  a  God's-message  to  us, — this  we  waste 
away  as  an  idle  artificial  firework,  sent  to  arnuse  us  a 
little,  and  sink  it  into  ashes,  wreck  and  ineffectuality: 
such  reception  of  a  great  man  I  do  not  call  perfect 
either!  Looking  into  the  heart  of  the  thing,  one  may 
perhaps  call  that  of  Burns  a  still  uglier  phenomenon, 
betokening  still  sadder  imperfections  in  mankind's 
ways,  than  the  Scandinavian  method  itself!  To  fall 
into  mere  unreasoning  deliquium  of  love  and  admira- 
tion, was  not  good;  but  such  unreasoning,  nay  irra- 
tional, supercilious  no-love  at  all  is  perhaps  still 
worse! — It  is  a  thing  for  ever  changing,  this  of  Hero- 
worship;  different  in  each  age,  difficult  to  do  well  in 


56  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

any  age.     Indeed  the  heart  of  the  whole  business  of 
the  age,  one  may  say,  is  to  do  it  well. 

We  have  chosen  Mahomet  not  as  the  most  eminent 
prophet;  but  as  the  one  we  are  freest  to  speak  of. 
He  is  by  no  means  the  truest  of  Prophets;  but  I  do 
esteem  him  a  true  one.     Farther,  as  there  is  no  dan- 
ger of  our  becoming,  any  of  us,  Mahometans,  I  mean 
to  say  all  the  good  of  him  I  justly  can.    It  is  the  way 
to  get  at  his  secret:  let  us  try  to  understand  what  he 
meant  with  the  world;  what  the  world  meant  and 
means  with  him,  will  then  be  a  more  answerable 
question.     Our  current  hypothesis  about  Mahomet, 
that  he  was  a  scheming  Impostor,  a  Falsehood  incar- 
nate, that  his  religion  is  a  mere  mass  of  quackery  and 
fatuity,  begins  really  to  be  now  untenable  to  any  one. 
The  lies,  which  well-meaning  zeal  has  heaped  round 
this  man,  are  disgraceful  to  ourselves  only.     When 
Pococke  inquired  of  Grotius,  Where  the  proof  was  of 
that  story  of  the  pigeon,  trained  to  pick  peas  from 
Mahomet's  ear,  and  pass  for  an  angel  dictating  to 
him?    Grotius  answered  that  there  was  no  proof!    It 
is  really  time  to  dismiss  all  that.    The  word  this  man 
spoke  has  been  the  life-guidance  now  of  one  hundred 
and  eighty  millions  of  men  these  twelve  hundred 
years.     These   hundred  and  eighty  millions   were 
made  by  God  as  wrell  as  we.     A  greater  number  of 
God's  creatures  believe  in  Mahomet's  wrord  at  this 
hour  than  in  any  other  word  whatever.     Are  we  to 
suppose  that  it  was  a  miserable  piece  of  spiritual 
legerdemain,  this  which  so  many  creatures  of  the 
Almighty  have  lived  by  and  died  by?    I,  for  my  part, 
cannot  form  any  such  supposition.     I  will  believe 
most  things  sooner  than  that.    One  would  be  entirely 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  57 

at  a  loss  what  to  think  of  this  world  at  all,  if  quackery 
so  grew  and  were  sanctioned  here. 

Alas,  such  theories  are  very  lamentable.     If  we 
would  attain  to  knowledge  of  any  thing  in  God's  true 
Creation,  let  us  disbelieve  them  wholly!     They  are 
the  product  of  an  Age  of  Skepticism;  indicate  the 
saddest  spiritual  paralysis,  and  mere  death-life  of  the 
souls  of  men;  more  godless  theory,  I  think,  was  never 
promulgated  in  this  Earth.     A  false  man  found  a 
religion?     Why,  a  false  man  cannot  build  a  brick 
house.     If  he  do  not  know  and  follow  truly  the 
properties  of  mortar,  burnt  clay  and  what  else  he 
works  in,  it  is  no  house  that  he  makes,  but  a  rubbish- 
heap.     It  will  not  stand  for  twelve  centuries,  to  lodge 
a  hundred  and  eighty  millions;  it  will  fall  straight- 
way.   A  man  must  conform  himself  to  Nature's  laws, 
be  verily  in  communion  with  Nature  and  the  truth  of 
things,  or  Nature  will  answer  him,  No,  not  at  all! 
Speciosities    are    specious — ah    me  !  — a    Cagliostro, 
many  Cagliostros,  prominent  world-leaders,  do  pros- 
per by  their  quackery,  for  a  day.    It  is  like  a  forged 
bank-note;  they  get  it  passed  out  of  their  worthless 
hands:  others,  not  they  have  to  smart  for  it.     Nature 
bursts  up  in  fire-flames,  French  Revolutions  and  such 
like,  proclaiming  with  terrible  veracity  that  forged 
notes  are  forged. 

But  of  a  Great  Man  especially,  of  him  I  will  ven- 
ture to  assert  that  it  is  incredible  he  should  have  been 
other  than  true.  It  seems  to  me  the  primary  foun- 
dation of  him,  and  of  all  that  can  lie  in  him,  this. 
No  Mirabeau,  Napoleon,  Burns,  Cromwell,  no  man 
adequate  to  do  any  thing,  but  is  first'  of  all  in  right 
earnest  about  it;  what  I  call  a  sincere  man.  I  should 
say  sincerity,  a  deep,  great  genuine  sincerity,  is  the 
5* 


58  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

first  characteristic  of  all  men  in  any  way  heroic.  Not 
the  sincerity  that  calls  itself  sincere;  ah  no,  that  is 
a  very  poor  matter  indeed; — a  shallow  braggart  con- 
scious sincerity;  oftenest  self-conceit  mainly.  The 
Great  Man's  sincerity  is  of  the  kind  he  cannot  speak 
of,  is  not  conscious  of:  nay,  I  suppose,  he  is  conscious 
rather  of  «?2sincerity;  for  what  man  can  walk  accu- 
rately by  the  law  of  truth  for  one  day?  No,  the 
Great  Man  does  not  boast  himself  sincere,  far  from 
that,  perhaps  does  not  ask  himself  if  he  is  so;  I 
would  say  rather,  his  sincerity  does  not  depend  on 
himself;  he  cannot  help  being  sincere!  The  great 
Fact  of  Existence  is  great  to  him.  Fly  as  he  will,  he 
cannot  get  out  of  the  awful  presence  of  this  Reality. 
His  mind  is  so  made;  he  is  great  by  that,  first  of  all. 
Fearful  and  wonderful,  real  as  Life,  real  as  Death,  is 
this  Universe  to  him.  Though  all  men  should  forget 
its  truth,  and  walk  in  a  vain  show,  he  cannot.  At 
all  moments  the  Flame-image  glares  in  upon  him; 
undeniable,  there,  there! — I  wish  you  to  take  this  as 
my  primary  definition  of  a  great  Man.  A  little  man 
may  have  this,  it  is  competent  to  all  men  that  God 
has  made;  but  a  Great  Man  cannot  be  without  it. 

Such  a  man  is  what  we  call  an  original  man:  he 
comes  to  us  at  first  hand.  A  messenger  he,  sent  from 
the  Infinite  Unknown  with  tidings  to  us.  We  may 
call  him  Poet,  Prophet,  God; — in  one  way  or  other, 
we  all  feel  that  the  words  he  utters  are  as  no  other 
man's  words.  Direct  from  the  Inner  Fact  of  things; — 
he  lives,  and  has  to  live,  in  daily  communion  with 
that.  Hearsays  cannot  hide  it  from  him ;  he  is  blind, 
homeless,  miserable,  following  hearsays;  it  glares  in 
upon  him.  Really  his  utterances,  are  they  not  a 
kind  of  "revelation;" — what  we  must  call  such  for 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  59 

want  of  some  other  name?  It  is  from  the  heart  of 
the  world  that  he  comes;  he  is  portion  of  the  primal 
reality  of  things.  God  has  made  many  revelations: 
hut  this  man  too,  has  not  God  made  him,  the  latest 
and  newest  of  all?  The  "  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
giveth  him  understanding:"  we  must  listen  before  all 
to  him. 

This  Mahomet,  then,  we  will  in  no  wise  consider 
as  an  Inanity  and  Theatrically,  a  poor  conscious  am- 
bitious schemer;  we  cannot  conceive  him  so.  The 
rude  message  he  delivered  was  a  real  one  withal;  an 
earnest  confused  voice  from  the  unknown  deep.  The 
man's  words  were  not  false,  nor  his  workings  here 
below:  no  Inanity  and  Simulacrum;  a  fiery  mass  of 
Life  cast  up  from  the  great  bosom  of  Nature  herself. 
To  kindle  the  world;  the  world's  Maker  had  ordered 
it  so.  Neither  can  the  faults,  imperfections,  insince- 
rities even,  of  Mahomet,  if  such  were  never  so  well 
proved  against  him,  shake  this  primary  fact  about  him. 

On  the  whole,  we  make  too  much  of  faults;  the 
details  of  the  business  hide  the  real  centre  of  it. 
Faults?  The  greatest  of  faults,  I  should  say,  is  to 
be  conscious  of  none.  Readers  of  the  Bible  above  all, 
one  would  think,  might  know  better.  Who  is  called 
there  "  the  man  according  to  God's  own  heart?"  Da- 
vid, the  Hebrew  king,  had  fallen  into  sins  enough; 
blackest  crimes;  there  was  no  want  of  sins.  And 
thereupon  the  unbelievers  sneer  and  ask,  Is  this  your 
man  according  to  God's  heart?  The  sneer,  I  must 
say,  seems  to  me  but  a  shallow  one.  What  are  faults, 
what  are  the  outward  details  of  a  life;  if  the  inner 
secret  of  it,  the  remorse,  temptations,  true,  often-baf- 
fled, never-ended  struggle  of  it,  be  forgotten?    "  It  is 


60  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps."  Of  all 
acts  is  not,  for  a  man,  repentance  the  most  divine? 
The  deadliest  sin,  I  say,  were  that  same  supercilious 
consciousness  of  no  sin; — that  is  death;  the  heart  so 
conscious  is  divorced  from  sincerity,  humility  and 
fact;  is  dead:  it  is  "  pure"  as  dead  dry  sand  is  pure. 
David's  life  and  history,  as  written  for  us  in  those 
Psalms  of  his,  I  consider  to  be  the  truest  emblem  ever 
given  of  a  man's  moral  progress  and  warfare  here 
below.  All  earnest  souls  will  ever  discern  in  it  the 
faithful  struggle  of  an  earnest  human  soul  towards 
what  is  good  and  best.  Struggle  often  baffled,  sore 
baffled,  down  as  into  entire  wreck;  yet  a  struggle 
never  ended;  ever,  with  tears,  repentance,  true  un- 
conquerable purpose,  begun  anew.  Poor  human  na- 
ture! Is  not  a  man's  walking,  in  truth,  always  that: 
"  a  succession  of  falls?"  Man  can  do  no  other.  In  this 
wild  element  of  a  Life,  he  has  to  struggle  onwards; 
now  fallen,  deep-abased;  and  ever,  with  tears,  re- 
pentance, with  bleeding  heart,  he  has  to  rise  again, 
struggle  again  still  onwards.  That  his  struggle  be  a 
faithful  unconquerable  one:  that  is  the  question  of 
questions.  We  will  put  up  with  many  sad  details, 
if  the  soul  of  it  were  true.  Details  by  themselves 
will  never  teach  us  what  it  is.  I  believe  we  mis- 
estimate Mahomet's  faults  even  as  faults:  but  the 
secret  of  him  will  never  be  got  by  dwelling  there. 
We  will  leave  all  this  behind  us;  and  assuring  our- 
selves that  he  did  mean  some  true  thing,  ask  can- 
didly, what  it  was  or  might  be. 

These  Arabs  Mahomet  was  born  among  are  cer- 
tainly a  notable  people.  Their  country  itself  is  nota- 
ble; the  fit  habitation  for  such  a  race.  Savage  inac- 
cessible  rock-mountains,  great  grim  deserts,  alter- 


LECT,  II.     THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  61 

nating  with  beautiful  strips  of  verdure:  wherever 
water  is,  there  is  greenness,  beauty;  odoriferous 
balm-shrubs,  date-trees,  frankincense  trees.  Con- 
sider that  wide  waste  horizon  of  sand,  empty, 
silent,  like  a  sand-sea,  dividing  habitable  place 
from  habitable.  You  are  all  alone  there,  left  alone 
with  the  Universe;  by  day  a  fierce  sun  blazing 
down  on  it  with  intolerable  radiance :  by  night 
the  great  deep  Heaven  with  its  stars.  Such  a  coun- 
try is  fit  for  a  swift-handed,  deep-hearted  race  of  men. 
There  is  something  most  agile,  active,  and  yet  most 
meditative,  enthusiastic  in  the  Arab  character.  The 
Persians  are  called  the  French  of  the  East;  we  will 
call  the  Arabs  Oriental  Italians.  A  gifted  noble  peo- 
ple: a  people  of  wild  strong  feelings,  and  of  iron 
restraint  over  them:  the  characteristic  of  noble-mind- 
edness, of  genius.  The  wild  Bedouin  welcomes  the 
stranger  to  his  tent,  as  one  having  right  to  all  that  is 
there;  were  it  his  worst  enemy,  he  will  slay  his  foal 
to  treat  him,  will  serve  him  with  sacred  hospitality 
for  three  days,  will  set  him  fairly  on  his  way; — and 
then,  by  another  law  as  sacred,  kill  him  if  he  can. 
In  words  too,  as  in  action.  They  are  not  a  loqua- 
cious people,  taciturn  rather;  but  eloquent,  gifted 
when  they  do  speak.  An  earnest,  truthful  kind  of 
men.  They  are,  as  we  know,  of  Jewish  kindred: 
but  with  that  deadly  terrible  earnestness  of  the  Jews 
they  seem  to  combine  something  graceful,  brilliant, 
which  is  not  Jewish.  They  had  "  Poetic  contests  " 
among  them  before  the  time  of  Mahomet.  Sale  says, 
at  Ocadh,  in  the  South  of  Arabia,  there  were  yearly 
fairs,  and  there,  when  the  merchandising  was  done, 
Poets  sang  for  prizes: — the  wild  people  gathered  to 
hear  that. 


62  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

One  Jewish  quality  these  Arabs  manifest;  the  out- 
come of  many  or  of  all  high  qualities:  what  we  may 
call  religiosity.  From  of  old  they  had  been  zealous 
worshippers  according  to  their  light.  They  worship- 
ped the  stars,  as  Sabeans;  worshipped  many  natural 
objects, — recognised  them  as  symbols,  immediate 
manifestations,  of  the  Maker  of  Nature.  It  was 
wrong;  and  yet  not  wholly  wrong.  All  God's  works 
are  still  in  a  sense  symbols  of  God.  Do  we  not,  as  I 
urged,  still  account  a  merit  to  recognise  a  certain 
inexhaustible  significance,  "poetic  beauty,"  as  we 
name  it,  in  all  natural  objects  whatsoever?  A  man 
is  a  poet,  and  honoured,  for  doing  that,  and  speak- 
ing or  singing  it, — a  kind  of  diluted  worship.  They 
had  many  prophets,  these  Arabs;  Teachers  each  to 
his  tribe,  each  according  to  the  light  he  had.  But 
indeed,  have  we  not  from  of  old  the  noblest  of  proofs, 
still  palpable  to  every  one  of  us,  of  what  devoutness 
and  noble-mindedness  had  dwelt  in  these  rustic 
thoughtful  people?  Biblical  critics  seem  agreed 
that  our  own  Book  of  Job  was  written  in  that  region 
of  the  world.  I  call  that,  apart  from  all  theories 
about  it,  one  of  the  grandest  things  ever  written  with 
pen.  One  feels,  indeed,  as  if  it  were  not  Hebrew; 
such  a  noble  universality,  different  from  noble  pa- 
triotism or  sectarianism,  reigns  in  it.  A  noble  Book; 
all  men's  Book!  It  is  our  first,  oldest  statement  of  the 
never-ending  Problem, — man's  destiny  and  God's 
ways  with  him  here  in  this  earth.  And  all  in  such  free 
flowing  outlines;  grand  in  its  sincerity,  in  its  simplicity; 
in  its  epic  melody,  and  repose  of  reconcilement.  There 
is  the  seeing  eye,  the  mildly  understanding  heart. 
So  true,  every  way;  true  eyesight  and  vision  for  all 
things;   material  things   no  less  than  spiritual:   the 


LECT.  II.       THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  63 

Horse, — "hast  thou  clothed  his  neck  with  thunder?" 
—he  "  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear!''  Such 
living  likenesses  were  never  since  drawn.  Sublime 
sorrow,  sublime  reconciliation;  oldest  choral  melody 
as  of  the  heart  of  mankind; — so  soft  and  great;  as 
the  summer  midnight,  as  the  world  with  its  seas  and 
stars!  There  is  nothing  written,  I  think,  in  the  Bi- 
ble or  out  of  it,  of  equal  literary  merit. — 

To  the  idolatrous  Arabs  one  of  the  most  ancient 
universal  objects  of  worship  was  that  Black  Stone, 
still  kept  in  the  building  called  Caabah,  at  Mecca. 
Diodorus  Siculus  mentions  this  Caabah  in  a  way  not 
to  be  mistaken,  as  the  oldest,  most  honoured  temple 
in  his  time;  that  is,  some  half-century  before  our 
Era.  Silvestre  de  Sacy  says  there  is  some  likelihood 
that  the  Black  Stone  is  an  aerolite.  In  that  case, 
some  man  might  see  it  fall  out  of  Heaven!  It  stands 
now  beside  the  Well  Zemzem;  the  Caabah  is  built 
over  both.  A  well  is  in  all  places  a  beautiful  affect- 
ing object,  gushing  out  like  life  from  the  hard  earth; 
— still  more  so  in  these  hot  dry  countries,  where  it  is 
the  first  condition  of  being.  The  well  Zemzem  has 
its  name  from  the  bubbling  sound  of  the  waters,  zem- 
zem; they  think  it  is  the  Well  which  Hagar  found 
with  her  little  Ishmael  in  the  wilderness:  the  aero- 
lite and  it  have  been  sacred  now,  and  had  a  Caabah 
over  them,  for  thousands  of  years.  A  curious  object 
that  Caabah!  There  it  stands  at  this  hour,  in  the 
black  cloth-covering  the  Sultan  sends  it  yearly; 
"twenty-seven  cubits  high;"  with  circuit,  with  double 
circuit  of  pillars,  with  festoon-rows  of  lamps  and 
quaint  ornaments:  the  lamps  will  be  lighted  again 
this  night, — to  glitter  again  under  the  stars.  An  au- 
thentic fragment  of  the  oldest  Past.    It  is  the  Keblah 


64  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

of  all  Moslems;  from  Delhi  all  onwards  to  Morocco, 
the  eyes  of  innumerable  praying  men  are  turned  to- 
wards it,  five  times,  this  day  and  all  days:  one  of  the 
nolablest  centres  in  the  Habitation  of  Men. 

It  had  been  from  the  sacredness  attached  to  this 
Caabah  Stone  and  Hagar's  Well,  from  the  pilgrim- 
ings  of  all  tribes  of  Arabs  thither,  that  Mecca  took 
its  rise  as  a  Town.  A  great  town  once,  though  much 
decayed  now.  It  has  no  natural  advantage  for  a 
town;  stands  in  a  sandy  hollow  amid  bare  barren 
hills  at  a  distance  from  the  sea:  its  provisions,  its 
very  bread,  have  to  be  imported.  But  so  many  pil- 
grims needed  lodgings;  and  then  all  places  of  pil- 
grimage do,  from  the  first,  become  places  of  trade. 
The  first  day  pilgrims  meet,  merchants  have  also 
met:  where  men  see  themselves  assembled  for  one 
object,  they  find  that  they  can  accomplish  other  ob- 
jects which  depend  on  meeting  together,  Mecca  be- 
came the  Fair  of  all  Arabia.  And  thereby  indeed 
the  chief  staple  and  warehouse  of  whatever  Com- 
merce there  was  between  the  Indian  and  the  West- 
ern countries,  Syria,  Egypt,  even  Italy.  It  had  at 
one  time  a  population  of  100,000;  buyers,  forward- 
ers of  those  Eastern  and  Western  products;  import- 
ers for  their  own  behoof  of  provisions  and  corn.  The 
government  was  a  kind  of  irregular  aristocratic  re- 
public, not  without  a  touch  of  theocracy.  Ten  men 
of  a  chief  tribe,  chosen  in  some  rough  way,  were  Go- 
vernors of  Mecca,  and  Keepers  of  the  Caabah.  The 
Koreish  were  the  chief  tribe  in  Mahomet's  time;  his 
own  family  was  of  that  tribe.  The  rest  of  the  Na- 
tion, fractioned  and  cut  asunder  by  deserts,  lived 
under  similar  rude  patriarchal  governments  by  one 
or   several:    herdsmen,   carriers,   traders,  generally 


LECT.  II.       THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  65 

robbers  too;  being  oftenest  at  war,  one  with  another, 
or  with  all;  held  together  by  no  open  bond,  if  it  were 
not  this  meeting  at  the  Caabah,  where  all  forms  of 
Arab  Idolatry  assembled  in  common  adoration; — held 
mainly  by  the  inward  indissoluble  bond  of  a  common 
blood  and  language.  In  this  way  had  the  Arabs  lived 
for  long  ageB,  unnoticed  by  the  world;  a  people  of 
great  qualities,  unconsciously  waiting  for  the  day 
when  they  should  become  notable  to  all  the  world. 
Their  Idolatries  appear  to  have  been  in  a  tottering 
state;  much  was  getting  into  confusion  and  fermen- 
tation among  them.  Obscure  tidings  of  the  most  im- 
portant Event  ever  transacted  in  this  world,  the  Life 
and  Death  of  the  Divine  Man  in  Judea,  at  once  the 
symptom  and  cause  of  immeasurable  change  to  all 
people  in  the  world,  had  in  the  course  of  centuries 
reached  into  Arabia  too;  and  could  not  but,  of  itself, 
have  produced  fermentation  there. 

It  was  among  this  Arab  people,  so  circumstanced, 
in  the  year  570  of  our  Era,  that  the  man  Mahomet 
was  born.  He  was  of  the  family  of  Hashem,  of  the 
Koreish  tribe  as  we  said;  though  poor,  connected 
with  the  chief  persons  of  his  country.  Almost  at  his 
birth  he  lost  his  Father:  at  the  age  of  six  years  his 
Mother  too,  a  woman  noted  for  her  beauty,  her  worth 
and  sense;  he  fell  to  the  charge  of  his  Grandfather, 
an  old  man,  a  hundred  years  old.  A  good  old  man: 
Mahomet's  Father,  Abdallah,  had  been  his  youngest 
favourite  son.  He  saw  in  Mahomet,  with  his  old 
life-worn  eyes,  a  century  old,  the  lost  Abdallah  come 
back  again,  all  that  was  left  of  Abdallah.  He  loved 
the  little  orphan  Boy  greatly;  used  to  say,  They 
must  take  care  of  that  beautiful  little  Boy,  nothing 
6 


6G  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

in  their  kindred  was  more  precious  than  he.  At  his 
death,  while  the  boy  was  still  but  two  years  old,  he 
left  him  in  charge  to  Abu  Thaleb  the  eldest  of  the 
Uncles,  as  to  him  that  now  was  head  of  the  house. 
By  this  Uncle,  a  just  and  rational  man  as  every 
thing  betokens,  Mahomet  was  brought  up  in  'the 
best  Arab  way. 

Mahomet,  as  he  grew  up,  accompanied  his  Uncle 
on  trading  journeys  and  such  like;  in  his  eighteenth 
year  one  finds  him  a  fighter  following  his  Uncle  in 
war.  But  perhaps  the  most  significant  of  all  his  jour- 
neys is  one  we  find  noted  as  of  some  years  earlier 
date:  a  journey  to  the  Fairs  of  Syria.  The  young 
man  here  first  came  in  contact  with  a  quite  foreign 
world, — with  one  foreign  element  of  endless  moment 
to  him:  the  Christian  Religion.  I  know  not  what 
to  make  of  that u  Sergius,  the  Nestorian  Monk,"  whom 
Abu  Thaleb  and  he  are  said  to  have  lodged  with;  or 
how  much  any  monk  could  have  taught  one  still  so 
young.  Probably  enough,  it  is  greatly  exaggerated, 
this  of  the  Nestorian  Monk.  Mahomet  was  only  four- 
teen; had  no  language  but  his  own:  much  in  Syria 
must  have  been  a  strange  and  unintelligible  whirl- 
pool to  him.  But  the  eyes  of  the  lad  were  open; 
glimpses  of  many  things  would  doubtless  be  taken 
in,  and  lie  very  enigmatic  as  yet,  which  were  to  ripen 
in  a  strange  way  into  views,  into  beliefs  and  insights 
one  day.  These  journeys  to  Syria  were  probably  the 
beginning  of  much  to  Mahomet. 

One  other  circumstance  we  must  not  forget:  that 
he  had  no  school-learning;  of  the  thing  we  call 
school-learning  none  at  all.  The  art  of  writing  was 
but  just  introduced  into  Arabia;  it  seems  to  be  the 
true  opinion  that  Mahomet  never  could  write!  Life 


LECT.  II.       THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  67 

in  the  Desert,  with  its  experiences,  was  all  his  edu- 
cation. What  of  this  infinite  Universe  he,  from  his 
dim  place,  with  his  own  eyes  and  thoughts,  could 
take  in,  so  much  and  no  more  of  it  was  he  to  know. 
Curious,  if  we  will  reflect  on  it,  this  of  having  no 
bobks.  Except  by  what  he  could  see  for  himself,  or 
hear  of  by  uncertain  rumour  of  speech  in  the  obscure 
Arabian  Desert,  he  could  know  nothing.  The  wis- 
dom that  had  been  before  him  or  at  a  distance  from 
him  in  the  world,  was  in  a  manner  as  good  as  not 
there  for  him.  Of  the  great  brother  souls,  flame-bea- 
cons through  so  many  lands  and  times,  no  one  di- 
rectly communicates  with  this  great  soul.  He  is 
alone  there,  deep  down  in  the  bosom  of  the  Wilder- 
ness; has  to  grow  up  so, — alone  with  Nature  and  his 
own  Thoughts. 

But,  from  an  early  age,  he  had  been  remarked  as 
a  thoughtful  man.  His  companions  named  him 
"  M  Jlmin,  The  Faithful.''  A  man  of  truth  and  fide- 
lity; true  in  what  he  did,  in  what  he  spake  and 
thought.  They  noted  that  he  always  meant  some- 
thing. A  man  rather  taciturn  in  speech;  silent  when 
there  was  nothing  to  be  said;  but  pertinent,  wise 
sincere,  when  he  did  speak;  always  throwing  light 
on  the  matter.  This  is  the  only  sort  of  speech  worth 
speaking!  Through  life  we  find  him  to  have  been 
regarded  as  an  altogether  solid,  brotherly,  genuine 
man.  A  serious,  sincere  character;  yet  amiable, 
cordial,  companionable,  jocose  even, — a  good  laugh 
in  him  withal:  there  are  men  whose  laugh  is  as  un- 
true as  any  thing  about  them;  who  cannot  laugh. 
One  hears  of  Mahomet's  beauty:  his  fine  sagacious 
honest  face,  brown  florid  complexion,  beaming  black 
eyes; — I  somehow  like  too  that  vein  on  the  brow, 


6S  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

which  swelled  up  black,  when  he  was  in  anger:  like 
the  " horse-shoevem"  in  Scott's  Redgauntlet.  It  was 
a  kind  of  feature  in  the  Hashem  family,  this  black 
swelling  vein  in  the  brow;  Mahomet  had  it  promi- 
nent, as  would  appear.  A  spontaneous,  passionate, 
yet  just,  true  meaning  man!  Full  of  wild  faculty, 
fire  and  light;  of  wild  worth,  all  uncultured;  work- 
ing out  his  life-task  in  the  depths  of  the  Desert  there. 
How  he  was  placed  with  Cadijah,  a  rich  Widow, 
as  her  Steward,  and  travelled  in  her  business  to  the 
Fairs  of  Syria;  how  he  managed  all,  as  one  can  well 
understand,  with  fidelity,  adroitness;  how  her  grati- 
tude, her  regard  for  him  grew:  the  story  of  their  mar- 
riage is  altogether  a  graceful  intelligible  one,  as  told 
us  by  the  Arab  authors.  He  was  twenty-five;  she 
forty,  though  still  beautiful.  He  seems  to  have  lived 
in  a  most  affectionate,  peaceable,  wholesome  way 
with  this  wedded  benefactress;  loving  her  truly,  and 
her  alone.  It  goes  greatly  against  the  impostor-theo- 
ry, the  fact  that  he  lived  in  this  entirely  unexcep- 
tionable, entirely  quiet  and  commonplace  way,  till 
the  heat  of  his  years  was  done.  He  was  forty  before 
he  talked  of  any  mission  from  Heaven.  All  his 
irregularities,  real  and  supposed,  date  from  after  his 
fiftieth  year,  when  the  good  Kadijah  died.  All  his 
"  ambition,"  seemingly,  had  been,  hitherto,  to  live  an 
honest  life;  his  "fame,"  the  mere  good  opinion  of 
neighbours  that  knew  him,  had  been  sufficient 
hitherto.  Not  till  he  was  already  getting  old,  the 
prurient  heat  of  his  life  all  burnt  out,  and  peace  grow- 
ing to  be  the  chief  thing  this  world  could  give  him, 
did  he  start  on  the  "  career  of  ambition;"  and,  bely- 
ing all  his  past  character  and  existence,  set  up  as  a 
wretched  empty  charlatan  to  acquire  what  he  could 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  69 

now  no  longer  enjoy!  For  my  share,  I  have  no  faith 
whatever  in  that. 

Ah  no:  this  deep-hearted  Son  of  the  Wilderness, 
with  his  beaming  black  eyes,  and  open  social  deep 
soul,  had  other  thoughts  in  him  than  ambition.  A 
silent  great  soul;  he  was  one  of  those  who  cannot 
but  be  in  earnest;  whom  Nature  herself  has  appoint- 
ed to  be  sincere.  While  others  walk  in  formulas  and 
hearsays,  contented  enough  to  dwell  there,  this  man 
could  not  screen  himself  in  formulas;  he  was  alone 
with  his  own  soul  and  the  reality  of  things.  The 
great  Mystery  of  Existence,  as  I  said,  glared  in  upon 
him;  with  its  terrors,  with  its  splendours;  no  hear- 
says could  hide  that  unspeakable  fact,  "Here  am  I!" 
Such  sincerity ',  as  we  named  it,  has  in  very  truth  some- 
thing of  divine.  The  word  of  such  a  man  is  a  Voice 
direct  from  Nature's  own  heart.  Men  do  and  must 
listen  to  that  as  to  nothing  else; — all  else  is  wind  in 
comparison.  From  of  old,  a  thousand  thoughts,  in 
his  pilgrimings  and  wanderings,  had  been  in  this  man: 
What  am  I?  What  is,  this  unfathomable  Thing  I  live 
in,  which  men  name  Universe?  What  is  Life;  what 
is  Death?  What  am  I  to  believe?  What  am  I  to 
do?  The  grim  rocks  of  Mount  Hara,  of  Mount  Si- 
nai, the  stern  sandy  solitudes  answered  not.  The 
great  Heaven  rolling  silent  overhead,  with  its  blue- 
glancing  stars,  answered  not.  There  was  no  answer. 
The  man's  own  soul,  and  what  of  God's  inspiration 
dwelt  there,  had  to  answer! 

It  is  the  thing  which  all  men  have  to  ask  them- 
selves; which  we  too  have  to  ask,  and  answer.  This 
wild  man  felt  it  to  be  of  infinite  moment;  all  other 
things  of  no  moment  whatever  in  comparison.  The 
jargon  of  argumentative  Greek  Sects,  vague  tradL- 
6* 


70  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

tions  of  Jews,  the  stupid  routine  of  Arab  Idolatry: 
there  was  no  answer  to  these.  A  Hero,  as  I  repeat, 
has  this  first  distinction,  which  indeed  we  may  call 
first  and  last,  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  whole 
Heroism,  That  he  looks  through  the  shows  of  things 
into  things.  Use  and  wont,  respectable  hearsay,  re- 
spectable formula:  all  this  is  good,  or  is  not  good. 
There  is  something  behind  and  beyond  all  these, 
which  all  these  must  correspond  with,  be  the  image 
of,  or  they  are — Idolatries;  "  bits  of  black  wood  pre- 
tending to  be  God;"  to  the  earnest  soul  a  mockery 
and  abomination.  Idolatries  never  so  gilded,  waited 
on  by  heads  of  the  Koreish,  will  do  nothing  for  this 
man.  Though  all  men  walk  by  them,  what  good  is 
it?  The  great  Reality  stands  glaring  there  upon  Aim. 
He  there  has  to  answer  it,  or  perish  miserably.  Now? 
even  now,  or  else  through  all  Eternity  never!  An- 
swer it;  thou  must  find  an  answer. — Ambition  ?  What 
could  all  Arabia  do  for  this  man;  with  the  crown  of 
Greek  Heraclius,  of  Persian  Chosroes,  and  all  crowns 
in  the  Earth; — what  could  they  all  do  for  him!  It 
was  not  of  the  Earth  he  wanted  to  hear  tell;  it  was 
of  the  Heaven  above,  and  of  the  Hell  beneath.  All 
crowns  and  sovereignties  whatsoever,  where  would 
they  in  a  few  brief  years  be  ?  To  be  Sheik  of  Mecca 
or  Arabia,  and  have  a  bit  of  gilt  wood  put  into  your 
hand, — will  that  be  one's  salvation  ?  I  decidedly 
think  not.  We  will  leave  it  altogether,  this  impos- 
tor-hypothesis, as  not  credible;  not  very  tolerable 
even,  worthy  chiefly  of  dismissal  by  us. 

Mahomet  had  been  wont  to  retire  yearly,  during 
the  month  Ramadhan,  into  solitude  and  silence;  as 
indeed  was  the  Arab  custom;  a  praiseworthy  custom, 
which  such  a  man,  above  all,  would  find  natural  and 


LECT.  IT.       THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  71 

useful.     Communing  with  his  own  heart,  in  the  si- 
lence of  the  mountains;  himself  silent;  open  to  the 
"small  still  voices;"  it  was  a  right  natural  custom! 
Mahomet  was  in    his    fortieth    year,    when    having 
withdrawn  to  a  cavern  in  Mount  Hara,  near  Mecca, 
during  this  Ramadhan,  to  pass  the  month  in  prayer, 
and  meditation  on  those  great  questions,  he  one  day 
told  his  wife  Kadijah,  who  with  his  household  was 
with  him  or  near  him  this  year,  That  by  the  unspeak- 
able special  favour  of  Heaven  he  had  now  found  it 
all  out;  was  in  doubt  and  darkness  no  longer,  but 
saw  it  all.     That  all  these  Idols  and  Formulas  were 
nothing,  miserable  bits  of  wood;  that  there  was  One 
God  in  and  over  all;  and  we  must  leave  all  Idols, 
and  look  to  Him.     That  God  is  great;  and  that  there 
is  nothing  else  great!     He  is  the  reality.     Wooden 
Idols  are  not  real;  He  is  real.     He  made  us  at  first, 
sustains  us  yet;  we  and  all  things  are  but  the  shadow 
of  Him;  a  transitory  garment  veiling   the   Eternal 
Splendour.    "Jlllah  akbar,  God  is  great;" — and  then 
also  "Islam"  That  we  must  submit  to  God.   That  our 
whole  strength  lies  in  resigned  submission  to  Him, 
whatsoever  He  do  to  us.     For  this  world,  and  for  the 
other!     The  thing  He  sends  to  us,  were  it  death  and 
worse  than  death,  shall  be  good,  shall  be  best;   we 
resign  ourselves  to  God. — "If  this  be  Islam,"  says 
Goethe,  "do  we  not  all  live  in  Islam?"     Yes,  all  of 
us  that  have  any  moral  life;  we  all  live  so.     It  has 
ever  been  held  the  highest  wisdom  for  a  man  not 
merely  to  submit  to  Necessity, — Necessity  will  make 
him  submit,-<-but  to  know  and  believe  well  that  the 
stern  thing  which  Necessity  had  ordered  was   the 
wisest,  the  best,  the  thing  wanted  there.     To  cease 
his  frantic  pretension  of  scanning  this  great  God's^ 


72  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

World  in  his  small  fraction  of  a  brainjto  know  that 
it  had  verily,  though  deep  beyond  his  soundings,  a 
Just  Law,  that  the  soul  of  it  was  Good; — that  his  part 
in  it  was  to  conform  to  the  Law  of  the  Whole,  and  in 
devout  silence  follow  that;  not  questioning  it,  obey- 
ing it  as  unquestionable. 

I  say,  this  is  yet  the  only  true  morality  known.  A 
man  is  right  and  invincible,  virtuous  and  on  the  road 
towards  sure  conquest,  precisely  while  he  joins  him- 
self to  the  great  deep  Law  of  the  World,  in  spite  of 
all  superficial  laws,  temporary  appearances,  profit- 
and-loss  calculations:  he  is  victorious  while  he  co- 
operates with  that  great  eentral  Law,  not  victorious 
otherwise: — and  surely  his  first  chance  of  co-opera- 
ting with  it,  or  getting  into  the  course  of  it,  is  to  know 
with  his  whole  soul  that  it  is;  that  it  is  good,  and 
alone  good!  This  is  the  soul  of  Islam;  it  is  properly 
the  soul  of  Christianity, — for  Islam  is  definable  as  a 
confused  form  of  Christianity;  had  Christianity  not 
been,  neither  had  it  been.  Christianity  also  com- 
mands us,  before  all,  to  be  resigned  to  God.  We 
are  to  take  no  counsel  with  flesh  and  blood;  give  ear 
to  no  vain  cavils,  vain  sorrows  and  wishes:  to  know 
that  we  know  nothing;  that  the  worst  and  cruellest 
to  our  eyes  is  not  what  it  seems;  that  we  have  to  re- 
ceive whatsoever  befalls  us  as  sent  from  God  above, 
and  say,  It  is  good  and  wise,  God  is  great!  "Though 
He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him."  Islam  means 
in  its  way  Denial  of  Self,  Annihilation  of  Self.  This 
is  yet  the  highest  Wisdom  that  Heaven  has  revealed 
to  our  Earth. 

Such  light  had  come,  as  it  could,  to  illuminate  the 
darkness  of  this  wild  Arab  Soul.  A  confused  dazzling 
splendour  as  of  life  and  Heaven,  in  the  great  dark' 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  to 

ness  which  threatened  to  be  death:  he  called  it  reve- 
lation and  the  angel  Gabriel; — who  of  us  yet  can 
know  what  to  call  it?  It  is  the  "  Inspiration  of  the 
Almighty'7  that  giveth  us  understanding.  To  know; 
to  get  into  the  truth  of  any  thing,  is  ever  a  mystic 
act, — but  which  the  best  Logics  can  but  babble  on 
the  surface.  "  Is  not  Belief  the  true  god-announcing 
Miracle?"  says  Novalis. — That  Mahomet's  whole 
soul,  set  in  flame  with  this  grand  Truth  vouchsafed 
him,  should  feel  as  if  it  were  important  and  the  only 
important  thing,  was  very  natural.  That  Providence 
had  unspeakably  honoured  him  by  revealing  it,  saving 
him  from  death  and  darkness;  that  he  therefore  was 
bound  to  make  known  the  same  to  all  creatures;  this 
is  what  is  meant  by  "Mahomet  is  the  Prophet  of  God;" 
this  too  is  not  without  its  true  meaning. — 

The  good  Kadijah,  we  can  fancy,  listened  to  him 
with  wonder,  with  doubt ;  at  length  she  answered, 
Yes,  it  was  true  this  that  he  said.  One  can  fancy  too 
the  boundless  gratitude  of  Mahomet;  and  how  of  all 
the  kindnesses  she  had  done,  this  of  believing  the 
earnest  struggling  word  he  now  spoke  was  the  great- 
est. "It  is  certain,"  says  Novalis,  "my  conviction 
gains  infinitely,  the  moment  another  soul  will  believe 
in  it."  It  is  a  boundless  favour. — He  never  forgot  this 
good  Kadijah.  Long  afterwards,  Ayesha  his  young 
favourite  wife,  a  woman  who  indeed  distinguished 
herself  among  the  Moslem,  by  all  manner  of  quali- 
ties, through  her  whole  long  life;  this  young  brilliant 
Ayesha  was,  one  day,  questioning  him:  "Now  am 
not  I  better  than  Kadijah?  She  was  a  widoAv;  old, 
and  had  lost  her  looks:  you  love  me  better  than  you 
did  her?" — "No,  by  Allah!"  answered  Mahomet: 
"No,  by  Allah!   She  believed  in  me  when  none  else 


74  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

would  believe.  In  the  whole  world  I  had  but  one 
friend,  and  she  was  that!"  Seid,  his  Slave,  also 
believed  in  him;  these  with  his  young  Cousin  Ali^ 
Abu  Thaleb's  son,  were  his  first  converts. 

He  spoke  of  his  Doctrine  to  this  man  and  that;  but 
the  most  treated  it  with  ridicule,  with  indifference: 
in  three  years,  I  think,  he  had  gained  but  thirteen 
followers.  His  progress  was  slow  enough.  His  en- 
couragement to  go  on,  was  altogether  the  usual 
encouragement  that  such  a  man  in  such  a  case  meets. 
After  some  three  years  of  small  success,  he  invited 
forty  of  his  chief  kindred  to  an  entertainment;  and 
there  stood  up  and  told  what  his  pretension  was:  that 
he  had  this  thing  to  promulgate  abroad  to  all  men; 
that  it  was  the  highest  thing,  the  one  thing:  which 
of  them  would  second  him  in  that?  Amid  the  doubt 
and  silence  of  all,  young  Ali,  as  yet  a  lad  of  sixteen, 
impatient  of  the  silence,  started  \ip,  and  exclaimed 
in  passionate  fierce  language,  That  he  would !  The 
assembly,  among  whom  was  Abu  Thaleb,  Ali's  Fa- 
ther, could  not  be  unfriendly  to  Mahomet;  yet  the 
sight  there,  of  one  unlettered  elderly  man,  with  a  lad 
of  sixteen,  deciding  on  such  an  enterprise  against  all 
mankind,  appeared  ridiculous  to  them;  the  assembly 
broke  up  in  laughter.  Nevertheless  it  proved  not  a 
laughable  thing;  it  was  a  very  serious  thing!  As  for 
this  young  Ali,  one  cannot  but  like  him.  A  noble- 
minded  creature,  as  he  shows  himself,  now  and 
always  afterwards;  full  of  affection,  of  fiery  daring. 
Something  chivalrous  in  him;  brave  as  a  lion;  yet 
with  a  grace,  a  truth  and  affection  worthy  of  Chris- 
tian Knighthood.  He  died  by  assassination  in  the 
Mosque  at  Bagdad;  a  death  occasioned  by  his  own  ge- 
nerous fairness,  confidence  in  the  fairness  of  others; 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  75 

he  said,  If  the  wound  proved  not  unto  death,  they 
must  pardon  the  Assassin;  but  if  it  did,  then  they 
must  slay  him  straightway,  that  so  they  two  in  the 
same  hour  might  appear  before  God,  and  see  which 
side  of  that  quarrel  was  the  just  one! 

Mahomet  naturally  gave  offence  to  the  Koreish, 
Keepers  of  the  Caabah,  superintendents  of  the  Idols. 
One  or  two  men  of  influence  had  joined  him;  the 
thing  spread  slowly,  but  it  was  spreading.  Naturally 
he  gave  offence  to  every  body:  Who  is  this  that  pre- 
tends to  be  wiser  than  we  all;  that  rebukes  us  all, 
as  mere  fools  and  worshippers  of  wood?  Abu  Thaleb 
the  good  Uncle  spoke  with  him;  Could  he  not  be 
silent  about  all  that;  believe  it  all  for  himself,  and 
not  trouble  others,  anger  the  chief  men,  endanger 
himself  and  them  all,  talking  of  it?  Mahomet  an- 
swered: if  the  Sun  stood  on  his  right  hand  and  the 
Moon  on  his  left,  ordering  him  to  hold  his  peace,  he 
could  not  obey!  No:  there  was  something  in  this 
Truth  he  had  got  which  was  of  Nature  herself;  equal 
in  rank  to  Sun,  or  Moon,  or  whatsoever  thing  Nature 
had  made.  It  would  speak  itself  there,  so  long  as 
the  Almighty  allowed  it,  in  spite  of  Sun  and  Moon, 
and  all  Koreish  and  all  men  and  things.  It  must  do 
that,  and  could  do  no  other.  Mahomet  answered  so, 
and,  they  say,  "  burst  into  tears. 9\  Burst  into  tears: 
he  felt  that  Abu  Thaleb  was  good  to  him ;  that  the  task 
he  had  got  was  no  soft,  but  a  stern  and  great  one. 

He  went  on  speaking  to  who  would  listen  to  him; 
publishing  his  Doctrine  among  the  pilgrims  as  they 
came  to  Mecca;  gaining  adherents  in  this  place  and 
that.  Continual  contradiction,  hatred,  open  or  secret 
danger  attended  him.  His  powerful  relations  pro- 
tected Mahomet  himself;  but  by  and  by,  on  his  own 


76  THE    HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

advice,  all  his  adherents  had  to  quit  Mecca,  and  seek 
refuge  in  Abyssinia  over  the  sea.  The  Koreish  grew 
ever  angrier;  laid  plots,  and  swore  oaths  among  them, 
to  put  Mahomet  to  death  with  their  own  hands.  Abu 
Thaleb  was  dead,  the  good  Kadijah  was  dead.  Ma- 
homet is  not  solicitous  of  sympathy  from  us;  but  his 
outlook  at  this  time  was  one  of  the  dismallest.  He 
had  to  hide  in  caverns,  escape  in  disguise;  fly  hither 
and  thither;  homeless,  in  continual  peril  of  his  life. 
More  than  once  it  seemed  all  over  with  him;  more 
than  once  it  turned  on  a  straw,  some  rider's  horse 
taking  fright  or  the  like,  whether  Mahomet  and  his 
Doctrine  had  not  ended  there,  and  not  been  heard  of 
at  all.     But  it  was  not  to  end  so. 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  mission,  finding  his 
enemies  all  banded  against  him,  forty  sworn  men, 
one  out  of  every  tribe  waiting  to  take  his  life,  and  no 
continuance  possible  at  Mecca  for  him  any  longer, 
Mahomet  fled  to  the  place  then  called  Yathreb,  where 
he  had  gained  some  adherents;  the  place  they  now 
call  Medina,  or  "  Medinat  al  Nabi,  the  City  of  the 
Prophet,"  from  that  circumstance.  It  lay  some  200 
miles  off,  through  rocks  and  deserts;  not  without  great 
difficulty,  in  such  mood  as  we  may  fancy,  he  escaped 
thither,  and  found  welcome.  The  whole  East  dates 
its  era  from  this  Flight,  Hegira  as  they  name  it:  the 
Year  1  of  this  Hegira  is  622  of  our  era,  the  fifty-third 
of  Mahomet's  life.  He  was  now  becoming  an  old 
man;  his  friends  sinking  round  him  one  by  one:  his 
path  desolate,  encompassed  with  danger:  unless  he 
could  find  hope  in  his  own  heart,  the  outward  face 
of  things  was  but  hopeless  for  him.  It  is  so  with  all 
men  in  the  like  case.  Hitherto  Mahomet  had  pro- 
fessed to  publish  his  Religion  by  the  way  of  preach- 


LECT.  H.       THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  77 

ing  and  persuasion  alone.  But  now,  driven  foully 
out  of  his  native  country,  since  unjust  men  had  not 
only  given  no  ear  to  his  earnest  Heaven's-message, 
the  deep  cry  of  his  heart,  but  would  not  even  let  him 
live  if  he  kept  speaking  it, — the  wild  Son  of  the 
Desert  resolved  to  defend  himself,  like  a  man  and 
Arab.  If  the  Koreish  will  have  it  so,  they  shall  have 
it.  Tidings,  felt  to  be  of  infinite  moment  to  them  and 
all  men,  they  would  not  listen  to  these;  would  tram- 
ple them  down  by  sheer  violence,  steel  and  murder: 
well,  let  steel  try  it  then!  Ten  years  more  this 
Mahomet  had;  all  of  fighting,  of  breathless  impetu- 
ous toil  and  struggle;  with  what  result  we  know. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Mahomet's  propagating  his 
Religion  by  the  sword.  It  is  no  doubt  far  nobler  what 
we  have  to  boast  of  the  Christian  Religion,  that  it 
propagated  itself  peaceably  in  the  way  of  preaching 
and  conviction.  Yet  withal,  if  we  take  this  for  an 
argument  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  a  religion,  there 
is  a  radical  mistake  in  it.  The  sword  indeed:  but 
where  will  you  get  your  sword?  Every  new  opinion, 
at  its  starting,  is  precisely  in  a  minority  of  one.  In 
one  man's  head  alone,  there  it  dwells  as  yet.  One 
man  alone  of  the  whole  world  believes  it;  there  is 
one  man  against  all  men.  That  he  take  a  sword,  and 
try  to  propagate  with  that,  will  do  little  for  him.  You 
must  first  get  your  sword .'  On  the  whole,  a  thing  will 
propagate  itself  as  it  can.  We  do  not  find,  of  the 
Christian  Religion  either,  that  it  always  disdained  the 
sword,  when  once  it  had  got  one.  Charlemagne's 
conversion  of  the  Saxons  was  not  by  preaching.  I 
care  little  about  the  sword:  I  will  allow  a  thing  to 
struggle  for  itself  in  this  world,  with  any  sword  or 
tongue  or  implement  it  has,  or  can  lay  hold  of.  We 
7 


78  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

will  let  it  preach,  and  pamphleteer,  and  fight  and 
to  the  uttermost  bestir  itself,  and  do,  beak  and  claws, 
whatsoever  is  in  it;  very  sure  that  it  will,  in  the  long- 
run,  conquer  nothing  which  does  not  deserve  to  be 
conquered.  What  is  better  than  itself,  it  cannot  put 
away,  but  only  what  is  worse.  In  this  great  Duel, 
Nature  herself  is  umpire,  and  can  do  no  wrong:  the 
thing  which  is  deepest-rooted  in  Nature,  what  we 
call  t?,uest,  that  thing  and  not  the  other  will  be  found 
growing  at  last. 

Here,  however,  in  reference  to  much  that  there  is 
in  Mahomet  and  his  success,  we  are  to  remember 
what  an  umpire  Nature  is;  what  a  greatness,  com- 
posure of  depth  and  tolerance  there  is  in  her.  You 
take  wheat  to  cast  into  the  Earth's  bosom;  your 
wheat  may  be  mixed  with  chaff,  chopped  straw, 
barn-sweepings,  dust,  and  all  imaginable  rubbish; 
no  matter:  you  cast  it  into  the  kind  just  Earth;  she 
grows  the  wheat, — the  whole  rubbish  she  silently 
absorbs,  shrouds  it  in,  says  nothing  of  the  rubbish. 
The  yellow  wheat  is  growing  there:  the  good  Earth 
is  silent  about  all  the  rest, — has  silently  turned  all 
the  rest,  to  some  benefit  too,  and  makes  no  complaint 
about  it!  So  every  where  in  Nature.  She  is  true  and 
not  a  lie;  and  yet  so  great,  and  just,  and  mother!}7, 
in  her  truth.  She  requires  of  a  thing  only  that  it  be 
genuine  of  heart;  she  will  protect  it  if  so;  will  not 
if  not  so.  There  is  a  soul  of  truth  in  all  the  things 
she  ever  gave  harbour  to.  Alas,  is  not  this  the  his- 
tory of  all  highest  Truth  that  comes  or  ever  came 
into  the  world?  The  body  of  them  all  is  imperfec- 
tion, an  element  of  light  in  darkness:  to  us  they  have 
to  come  imbodied  in  mere  Logic,  in  some  merely 
scientific  Theorem  of  the  Universe;  which  cannot  be 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  79 

complete;  which  cannot  but  be  found,  one  day,  in- 
complete,  erroneous,  and  so  die  and  disappear.  The 
body  of  all  Truth  dies;  and  yet  in  all,  I  say,  there 
is  a  soul  which  never  dies;  which  in  new  and  ever- 
nobler  imbodiment  lives  immortal  as  man  himself! 
It  is  the  way  with  Nature.  The  genuine  essence  of 
Truth  never  dies.  That  it  be  genuine,  a  voice  from 
the  great  Deep  of  Nature,  there  is  the  point  at  Na- 
ture's judgment-seat.  What  we  call  pure  or  impure, 
is  not  with  her  the  final  question.  Not  how  much 
chaff  is  in  you;  but  whether,  you  have  any  wheat. 
Pure,?  I  might  say  to  many  a  man:  Yes,  you  are 
pure;  pure  enough;  but  you  are  chaff, — insincere 
hypothesis,  hearsay,  formality;  you  never  were  in 
contact  with  the  great  heart  of  the  Universe  at  all; 
you  are  properly  neither  pure  nor  impure;  you  are 
nothing,  Nature  has  no  business  with  you. 

Mahomet's  Creed  we  called  a  kind  of  Christianity, 
and  really,  if  we  look  at  the  wild  rapt  earnestness 
with  which  it  was  believed  and  laid  to  heart,  I  should 
say  a  better  kind  than  that  of  those  miserable  Syrian 
Sects,  with  their  vain  janglings  about  Homoiousion 
and  Homoousion,  the  head  full  of  worthless  noise,  the 
heart  empty  and  dead!  The  truth  of  it  is  imbedded 
in  portentous  error  and  falsehood;  but  the  truth  of  it 
makes  it  be  believed,  not  the  falsehood:  it  succeeded 
by  its  truth.  A  bastard  kind  of  Christianity,  but  a 
living  kind;  with  a  heart-life  in  it;  not  dead,  chop- 
ping barren  logic  merely !  Out  of  all  that  rubbish  of 
Arab  idolatries,  argumentative  theologies,  traditions, 
subtleties,  rumours  and  hypotheses  of  Greeks  and 
Jews,  with  their  idle  wire-drawings,  this  wild  man  of 
the  Desert,  with  his  wild  sincere  heart,  earnest  as 
death  and  life,  with  his  great  flashing  natural  eye- 


80  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

sight,  had  seen  into  the  kernel  of  the  matter.  Idolatry 
is  nothing:  these  Wooden  Idols  of  yours,  "ye  rub 
them  with  oil  and  wax,  and  the  flies  stick  on  them," — 
these  are  wood,  I  tell  you!  They  can  do  nothing  for 
you;  they  are  an  impotent  blasphemous  pretence;  a 
horror  and  abomination,  if  ye  knew  them.  God  alone 
is;  God  alone  has  power;  He  made  us,  He  can  kill 
us  and  keep  us  alive :  "Allah  akbar,  God  is  great." 
Understand  that  His  will  is  the  best  for  you;  that 
howsoever  sore  to  flesh  and  blood,  you  will  find  it  the 
wisest,  best:  you  are  bound  to  take  it  so;  in  this  world 
and  in  the  next,  you  have  no  other  thing  that  you  can 
do! — And  now  if  the  wild  idolatrous  men  did  believe 
this,  and  with  their  fiery  hearts  lay  hold  of  it  to  do 
it,  in  what  form  soever  it  came  to  them,  I  say  it  was 
well  worthy  of  being  believed.  In  one  form  or  the 
other,  I  say  it  is  still  the  one  thing  worthy  of  being 
believed  by  all  men.  Man  does  hereby  become  the 
high-priest  of  this  Temple  of  a  World.  He  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  Decrees  of  the  Author  of  this  World; 
co-operating  with  them,  not  vainly  withstanding 
them:  I  know,  to  this  day,  no  better  definition  of 
Duty  tban  that  same.  All  that  is  right  includes  itself 
in  this  of  co-operating  with  the  real  Tendency  of  the 
World:  you  succeed  by  this,  (the  World's  Tendency 
will  succeed,)  you  are  good,  and  in  the  right  course 
there.  Hojnoiovsion^Homooiision,  vain  logical  jangle 
then  or  before  or  at  any  time,  may  jangle  itself  out, 
and  go  whither  and  how  it  likes:  this  is  the  thing  it 
all  struggles  to  mean,  if  it  would  mean  any  thing. 
If  it  do  not  succeed  in  meaning  this,  it  means  nothing. 
Not  that  Abstractions,  logical  Propositions,  be  cor- 
rectly worded  or  incorrectly;  but  that  living  concrete 
Sons  of  Adam  do  lay  this  to  heart:  that  is  the  im- 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  81 

portant  point.  Islam  devoured  all  these  vain  jang- 
ling Sects;  and  I  think  had  right  to  do  so.  It  was  a 
Reality  direct  from  the  great  Heart  of  Nature  once 
more.  Arab  idolatries,  Syrian  formulas,  whatsoever 
was  not  equally  real,  had  to  go  up  in  flame, — mere 
dead  fuel,  in  various  senses,  for  this  which  was  fire. 

It  was  during  these  wild  warfarings  and  strugglings, 
especially  after  the  Flight  to  Mecca,  that  Mahomet 
dictated  at  intervals  his  Sacred  Book,  which  they 
name  Koran,  or  reading,  "  Thing  to  be  read."  This 
is  the  Work  he  and  his  disciples  made  so  much  of, 
asking  all  the  world,  Is  not  that  a  miracle?  The 
Mahometans  regard  their  Koran  with  a  reverence 
which  few  Christians  pay  even  to  their  Bible.  It  Is 
admitted  every  where  as  the  standard  of  all  law  and 
all  practice ;  the  thing  to  be  gone  upon  in  specula- 
tion and  life:  the  message  sent  direct  out  of  Heaven, 
which  this  Earth  has  to  conform  to,  and  walk  by;  the 
thing  to  be  read.  Their  Judges  decide  by  it;  all 
Moslem  are  bound  to  study  it,  seek  in  it  for  the  light 
of  their  life.  They  have  mosques  where  it  is  all  read 
daily;  thirty  relays  of  priests  take  it  up  in  succession, 
get  through  the  whole  each  day.  There,  for  twelve 
hundred  years,  has  the  voice  of  this  Book,  at  all  mo- 
ments, kept  sounding  through  the  ears  and  the  hearts 
of  so  many  men.  We  hear  of  Mahometan  Doctors 
that  had  read  it  seventy  thousand  times! 

Very  curious;  if  one  sought  for  "  discrepancies  of 
national  taste,"  here  surely  were  the  most  eminent 
instance  of  that!  We  also  can  read  the  Koran;  our 
Translation  of  it,  by  Sale,  is  known  to  be  a  very  fair 
one.  I  must  say,  it  is  as  toilsome  reading  as  I  ever 
undertook.  A  wearisome  confused  jumble,  crude, 
7* 


82  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

incondite;  endless  iterations,  long-windedness,  en- 
tanglement; most  crude,  incondite; — insupportable 
stupidity,  in  short !  Nothing  but  a  sense  of  duty  could 
carry  any  European  through  the  Koran.  We  read  in 
it,  as  we  might  in  the  State-Paper  Office,  unreadable 
masses  of  lumber,  that  perhaps  we  may  get  some 
glimpses  of  a  remarkable  man.  It  is  true  we  have 
it  under  disadvantages:  the  Arabs  see  more  method 
in  it  than  we.  Mahomet's  followers  found  the  Koran 
lying  all  in  fractions,  as  it  had  been  written  down  at 
first  promulgation;  much  of  it,  they  say,  on  shoulder- 
blades  of  mutton,  flung  pellmell  into  a  chest:  and 
they  published  it  without  any  discoverable  order  as 
to  time  or  otherwise; — merely  trying,  as  would  seem, 
and  this  not  very  strictly,  to  put  the  longest  chapters 
first.  The  real  beginning  of  it,  in  that  way,  lies 
almost  at  the  end  ;  for  the  earliest  portions  were  the 
shortest.  Read  in  its  historical  sequence  it  perhaps 
would  not  be  so  bad.  Much  of  it,  too,  they  say,  is 
rhythmatic;  a  kind  of  wild  chanting  song,  in  the 
original.  Yet  with  every  allowance,  one  feels  it  dif- 
ficult to  see  how  any  mortal  ever  could  consider  this 
Koran  as  a  Book  written  in  Heaven,  too  good  for  the 
Earth  ;  as  a  well  written  book,  or  indeed  as  a  book 
at  all;  and  not  a  bewildered  rhapsody;  written,  so 
far  as  writing  goes,  as  badly  as  almost  any  book  ever 
was!  So  much  for  national  discrepancies,  and  the 
standard  of  taste. 

Yet  1  should  say,  it  was  not  unintelligible  how  the 
Arabs  might  so  love  it.  When  once  you  get  this  con- 
fused coil  of  a  Koran  fairly  off  your  hands,  and  have 
it  behind  you  at  a  distance,  the  essential  type  of  it 
begins  to  disclose  itself;  and  in  this  there  is  a  merit 
quite  other  than  the  literary  one.     If  a  book  come 


LECT.  II.     THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  83 

from  the  heart,  it  will  contrive  to  reach  other  hearts; 
all  art  and  authorcraft  are  of  small  amount  to  that. 
One  would  say  the  primary  character  of  the  Koran  is 
this  of  its  genuineness,  of  its  being  a  bond  fide  book. 
Prideaux,  I  know,  and  others  have  represented  it  as 
a  mere  bundle  of  juggleries;  chapter  after  chapter 
got  up  to  excuse  and  varnish  over  the  author's  suc- 
cessive sins,  forward  his  ambitions  and  quackeries: 
but  really  it  is  time  to  dismiss  all  that.  1  do  not  assert 
Mahomet's  continual  sincerity:  who  is  continually 
sincere?  But  I  confess  I  can  make  nothing  of  the  "fr 
critic,  in  these  times,  who  would  accuse  him  of  deceit 
prepense;  of  conscious  deceit  generally,  or  perhaps 
at  all; — still  more,  of  living  in  a  mere  element  of 
conscious  deceit,  and  writing  this  Koran  as  a  forger 
and  juggler  would  have  done!  Every  candid  eye,  I 
think,  will  read  the  Koran  far  otherwise  than  so.  It 
is  the  confused  ferment  of  a  great  rude  human  soul; 
rude,  untutored,  that  cannot  even  read;  but  fervent, 
earnest,  struggling  vehemently  to  utter  itself  in 
words.  With  a  kind  of  breathless  intensity  he  strives 
to  utter  himself;  the  thoughts  crowd  on  him  pell- 
mell;  for  very  multitude  of  things  to  say  he  can  get 
nothing  said.  The  meaning  that  is  in  him  shapes 
itself  into  no  form  of  composition,  is  stated  in  no  se- 
quence, method,  or  coherence; — they  are  not  shaped 
at  all,  these  thoughts  of  his;  flung  out  unshaped,  as 
they  struggle  and  tumble  there,  in  their  chaotic  inar- 
ticulate state.  We  said  "stupid :"  yet  natural  stupidity 
is  by  no  means  the  character  of  Mahomet's  Book;  it 
is  natural  uncultivation  rather.  The  man  has  not 
studied  speaking ;  in  the  haste  and  pressure  of  con- 
tinual fighting,  has  not  time  to  mature  himself  into 
fit  speech.     The  panting  breathless  haste  and  vehe- 


84  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

mence  of  a  man  struggling  in  the  thick  battle  for  life 
and  salvation;  this  is  the  mood  he  is  in!  A  head- 
long haste;  for  very  magnitude  of  meaning  he  cannot 
get  himself  articulated  into  words.  The  successive 
utterances  of  a  soul  in  that  mood,  coloured  by  the 
various  vicissitudes  of  three-and-twenty  years;  now 
well  uttered,  now  worse :  this  is  the  Koran. 

For  we  are  to  consider  Mahomet,  through  these 
three-and-twenty  years,  as  the  centre  of  a  world 
wholly  in  conflict.  Battles  with  the  Koreish  and 
Heathen  quarrels  among  his  own  people,  backslid- 
ings  of  his  own  wild  heart;  all  this  kept  him  in  a 
perpetual  whirl,  his  soul  knowing  rest  no  more.  In 
wakeful  nights,  as  one  may  fancy,  the  wild  soul  of 
the  man,  tossing  amid  these  vortices,  would  hail  any 
light  of  a  decision  for  them  as  a  veritable  light  from 
Heaven;  any  making  up  of  his  mind,  so  blessed,  in- 
dispensable for  him  there,  would  seem  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  Gabriel.  Forger  and  juggler!  Ah,  no! 
This  great  fiery  heart,  seething,  simmering  like  a 
great  furnace  of  thoughts,  was  not  a  juggler's.  His 
Life  was  a  Fact  to  him;  this  God's  Universe  an  awful 
Fact  and  Reality.  He  has  faults  enough.  The  man 
was  an  uncultured  semi-barbarous  Son  of  Nature, 
much  of  the  Bedouin  still  clinging  to  him:  we  must 
take  him  for  that.  But  for  a  wretched  Simulacrum, 
a  hungry  Impostor  without  eyes  or  heart,  practising 
for  a  mess  of  pottage  such  blasphemous  swindlery, 
forgery  of  celestial  documents,  continual  high-trea- 
son against  his  Maker  and  Self,  we  will  not  and 
cannot  take  him. 

Sincerity,  in  all  senses,  seems  to  be  the  merit  of 
the  Koran;  what  had  rendered  it  precious  to  the  wild 
Arab  men.     It  is,  after  all,  the  first  and  last  merit  in 


LECT.  IT.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  85 

a  book ;  gives  rise  to  merits  of  all  kinds, — nay,  at 
bottom,  it  alone  can  give  rise  to  merit  of  any  kind. 
Curiously,  through  these  incondite  masses  of  tradi- 
tion, vituperation,  complaint,  ejaculation  in  the  Ko- 
ran a  vein  of  true  direct  insight,  of  what  we  might 
almost  call  poetry,  is  found  straggling.  The  body 
of  the  Book  is  made  up  of  mere  tradition,  and  as  it 
were  vehement  enthusiastic  extempore  preaching. 
He  returns  for  ever  to  the  old  stories  of  the  Prophets 
as  they  went  current  in  the  Arab  memory ;  how  Pro- 
phet after  Prophet,  the  Prophet  Abraham,  the  Pro- 
phet Hud,  the  Prophet  Moses,  Christian  and  other 
real  and  fabulous  Prophets,  had  come  to  this  Tribe 
and  to  that,  warning  men  of  their  sin;  and  been  re- 
ceived by  them  even  as  he  Mahomet  was, — which  is 
a  great  solace  to  him. 

These  things  he  repeats  ten,  perhaps  twenty  times; 
again  and  ever  again,  with  wearisome  iteration;  has 
never  done  repeating  them.  A  brave  Samuel  John- 
son, in  his  forlorn  garret,  might  study  the  Biogra- 
phies of  authors  in  that  way  !  This  is  the  great  sta- 
ple of  the  Koran.  But  curiously,  through  all  this, 
comes  ever  and  anon  some  glance  as  of  the  real 
thinker  and  seer.  He  has  actually  an  eye  for  the 
world,  this  Mahomet:  with  a  certain  directness  and 
rugged  vigour,  he  brings  home  still,  to  our  heart,  the 
thing  his  own  heart  has  been  open  to.  I  make  but 
little  of  his  praises  of  Allah,  which  many  praise; 
they  are  borrowed  I  suppose  from  the  Hebrew,  at 
least  they  are  far  surpassed  there.  But  the  eye  that 
flashes  direct  into  the  heart  of  things,  and  sees  the 
truth  of  them !  this  is  to  me  a  highly  interesting  ob- 
ject. Great  Nature's  own  gift ;  which  she  bestows 
on  all;  but  which  only  one  in  the  thousand  does  not 


86  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

cast  sorrowfully  away:  it  is  what  I  call  sincerity  of 
vision;  the  test  of  a  sincere  heart.  Mahomet  can 
work  no  miracles;  he  often  answers  impatiently:  1 
can  work  no  miracles.  I  ?  "  I  am  a  public  preacher;" 
appointed  to  preach  this  doctrine  to  all  creatures. 
Yet  the  world,  as  we  can  see,  had  really  from  of  old 
been  all  one  great  miracle  to  him.  Look  over  the 
world,  says  he;  is  it  not  wonderful,  the  work  of  Allah ; 
wholly  "  a  sign  to  you,"  if  your  eyes  were  open!  This 
Earth,  God  made  it  for  you;  "  appointed  paths  in  it;" 
you  can  live  in  it,  go  to  and  fro  on  it. — The  clouds 
in  the  dry  country  of  Arabia,  to  Mahomet  they  were 
very  wonderful;  Great  clouds,  he  says,  born  in  the 
deep  bosom  of  the  Upper  Immensity,  where  do  they 
come  from  ?  They  hang  there,  the  great  black  mon- 
sters; pour  down  their  rain-deluges  "  to  revive  a  dead 
earth,"  and  grass  springs,  and  "  tall  leafy  palm-trees 
with  their  date-clusters  hanging  around.  Is  not  that 
a  sign  ?  Your  cattle  too, — Allah  made  them :  ser- 
viceable dumb  creatures;  they  make  the  grass  into 
milk;  you  have  your  clothing  from  them,  very  strange 
creatures;  "and,"  adds  he,  "and  they  are  a  credit  to 
you!"  Ships, — he  talks  often  about  ships:  Huge 
moving  mountains,  they  spread  out  their  cloth  wings, 
go  bounding  through  the  water  there,  Heaven's  wind 
driving  them;  anon  they  lie  motionless,  God  has 
withdrawn  the  wind,  they  lie  dead,  and  cannot  stir  ! 
Miracles  cries  he ;  What  miracles  would  you  hav&? 
Are  not  you  yourselves  there?  God  made  you, 
"  shaped  you  out  of  a  little  clay."  Ye  were  small 
once :  a  few  years  ago  ye  were  not  at  all.  Ye  have 
beauty,  strength,  thoughts,  "ye  have  compassion  on 
one  another."  Old  age  comes  on  you,  and  gray  hairs; 
your  strength  fades  into  feebleness;  ye  sink  down, 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  87 

and  again  are  not.  "Ye  have  compassion  on  one 
another:  this  struck  me  much:  Allah  might  have 
made  you  having  no  compassion  on  one  another, — 
how  had  it  been  then  V9  This  is  a  great  direct  thought, 
a  glance  at  first-hand  into  the  very  fact  of  things. 
Rude  vestiges  of  poetic  genius,  of  whatsoever  is  best 
and  truest  are  visible  in  this  man.  A  strong,  untu- 
tored intellect;  eyesight,  heart :  a  strong  wild  man 
— might  have  shaped  himself  into  Poet,  King,  Priest, 
any  kind  of  Hero. 

To  his  eyes  it  is  for  ever  clear  that  this  world  wholly 
is  miraculous.  He  sees  what,  as  we  said  once  be- 
fore all  great  thinkers,  the  rude  Scandinavians  them- 
selves, in  one  way  or  other,  have  contrived  to  see; 
That  this  so  solid-looking  material  world  is,  at  bot- 
tom, in  very  deed,  Nothing;  is  a  visual  and  actual 
Manifestation  of  God's  power  and  presence, —  a  sha- 
dow hung  out  by  Him  on  the  bosom  of  the  void  Infi- 
nite; nothing  more.  The  mountains,  he  says,  these 
great  rock-mountains,  they  shall  dissipate  themselves 
"like  clouds;"  melt  into  the  Blue  as  clouds,  do  and 
not  be!  He  figures  the  Earth;  in  the  Arab  fashion. 
Sale  tells  us,  as  an  immense  Plain  or  flat  Plate  of 
ground,  the  mountains  are  set  on  that  to  steady  it. 
At  the  Last  Day  they  shall  disappear  "like  clouds  ;" 
the  whole  Earth  shall  go  spinning,  whirl  itself  off 
into  wreck,  and  as  dust  and  vapour  vanish  in  the 
Inane.  Allah  withdraws  his  hand  from  it,  and  it 
ceases  to  be.  The  universal  empire  of  Allah,  pre- 
sence every  where  of  an  unspeakable  Power,  a  Splen- 
dour, and  a  Terror  not  to  be  named,  as  the  true 
force,  essence  and  reality,  in  all  things,  whatsoever, 
was  continually  clear  to  this  man.  What  a  modern 
talks  of  by  the  name,  Forces  of  Nature,  Laws  of  Na- 


S3  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

ture;  and  does  not  figure  as  a  divine  thing;  not  even 
as  one  thing  at  all,  but  as  a  set  of  things,  undivine 
enough, — saleable,  curious,  good  for  propelling 
steam-ships!  With  our  Sciences  and  Cyclopedias, 
we  are  apt  to  forget  the  divineness,  in  those  labora- 
tories of  ours.  We  ought  not  to  forget  it!  That  once 
well  forgotten,  I  know  not  what  else  were  worth  re- 
membering. Most  sciences,  I  think,  were  then  a 
very  dead  thing;  withered,  contentious,  empty; — a 
thistle  in  late  autumn.  The  best  science,  without 
this,  is  but  as  the  dead  timber;  it  is  not  the  growing 
tree  and  forest, — which  gives  ever-new  timber  among 
other  things!  Man  cannot  know  either,  unless  he 
can  worship  in  some  way.  His  knowledge  is  a  pe- 
dantry, and  dead  thistle,  otherwise. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  sensu- 
ality of  Mahomet's  Religion;  more  than  was  just. 
The  indulgences,  criminal  to  us,  which  he  permitted, 
were  not  of  his  appointment;  he  found  them  prac- 
tised, unquestioned  from  immemorial  time  in  Arabia; 
what  he  did  was  to  curtail  them,  restrict  them,  not 
on  one  but  on  many  sides.  His  Religion  is  not  an 
easy  one;  with  rigorous  fasts,  lavations,  strict  com- 
plex formulas,  prayers  five  times  a  day,  and  absti- 
nence from  wine,  it  did  not  "succeed  by  being  an 
easy  religion."  As  if  indeed  any  religion,  or  cause 
holding  of  religion,  could  succeed  by  that!  It  is  a 
calumny  on  men  to  say  that  they  are  roused  to  he- 
roic action  by  ease,  hope  of  pleasure,  recompense, 
— sugar-plums  of  any  kind,  in  this  world  or  the  next! 
In  the  meanest  mortal  there  lies  something  nobler. 
The  poor  swearing  soldier,  hired  to  be  shot,  has  his 
"honour  of  a  soldier,"  different  from  drill-regulations 
and  the  shilling  a  day.  It  is  not  to  taste  sweet  things, 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  89 

but  to  do  noble  and  true  things,  and  vindicate  him- 
self under  God's  Heaven  as  a  god-made  Man,  that 
the  poorest  son  of  Adam  dimly  longs.  Show  him  the 
way  of  doing  that,  the  dullest  daydrudge  kindles  into 
a  hero.  They  wrong  man  greatly  who  say  he  is  to 
be  seduced  by  ease.  Difficulty,  abnegation,  martyr- 
dom, death  are  the  allurements  that  act  on  the  heart 
of  man.  Kindle  the  inner  genial  life  of  him,  you 
have  a  flame  that  burns  up  all  lower  considerations. 
Not  happiness,  but  something  higher:  one  sees  this 
even  in  the  frivolous  classes,  with  their  "  point  of 
honour  "  and  the  like.  Not  by  flattering  our  appe- 
tites; no,  by  awakening  the  Heroic  that  slumbers  in 
every  heart,  can  any  Religion  gain  followers. 

Mahomet  himself,  after  all  that  can  be  said  about 
him,  was  not  a  sensual  man.  We  shall  err  widely 
if  we  consider  this  man  as  a  common  voluptuary, 
intent  mainly  on  base  enjoyments, — nay  on  enjoy- 
ments of  any  kind.  His  household  was  of  the  fru- 
galest;  his  common  diet  barley- bread  and  water: 
sometimes  for  months  there  was  not  a  fire  once 
lighted  on  his  hearth.  They  record  with  just  pride 
that  he  would  mend  his  own  shoes,  patch  his  own 
cloak.  A  poor,  hard-toiling,  ill-provided  man;  care- 
less of  what  vulgar  men  toil  for.  Not  a  bad  man,  I 
should  say;  something  better  in  him  than  hunger  of 
any  sort, — or  these  wild  Arab  men,  fighting  and  jost- 
ling three-and-twenty  years  at  his  hand,  in  close 
contact  with  him  always,  would  not  have  reverenced 
him  so!  They  were  wild  men,  bursting  ever  and 
anon  into  quarrel,  into  all  kinds  of  fierce  sincerity; 
without  right  worth  and  manhood,  no  man  could 
have  commanded  them.  They  call  him  Prophet, 
you  say?  Why,  he  stood  there  face  to  face  with 
S 


90  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

them;  bare,  not  inshrined  in  any  mystery;  visibly 
clouting  his  own  cloak,  cobbling  his  own  shoes : 
fighting,  counselling,  ordering  in  the  midst  of  them: 
they  must  have  seen  what  kind  of  man  he  was,  let 
him  be  called  what  you  like!  No  emperor  with  his 
tiaras  was  obeyed  as  this  man  in  a  cloak  of  his  own 
clouting, — during  three-and-twenty  years  of  rough 
actual  trial.  I  find  something  of  a  veritable  Hero 
necessary  for  that,  of  itself. 

His  last  words  are  a  prayer;  broken  ejaculations 
of  a  heart  struggling  up,  in  trembling  hope,  towards 
its  Maker.  We  cannot  say  that  his  religion  made 
him  worse;  it  made  him  better;  good,  not  bad. 
Generous  things  are  recorded  of  him:  when  he  lost 
his  Daughter,  the  thing  he  answers  is,  in  his  own  di- 
alect, every  way  sincere,  and  yet  equivalent  to  that 
of  Christians,"  The  Lord  giveth,  and  the  Lord  taketh 
away;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  He  an- 
swered in  like  manner  of  Seid,  his  emancipated,  well- 
beloved  Slave,  the  second  of  the  believers.  Seid  had 
fallen  in  the  War  of  Tabuc,  the  first  of  Mahomet's 
fightings  with  the  Greeks.  Mahomet  said  it  was 
well;  Seid  had  done  his  Master's  work,  Seid  had 
now  gone  to  his  Master:  it  was  all  well  with  Seid. 
Yet  Seid's  daughter  found  him  weeping  over  the 
body; — the  old  gray-haired  man  melting  in  tears! 
"What  do  I  see?"  said  she. — "You  see  a  friend 
weeping  over  his  friend." — He  went  out  for  the  last 
time  into  the  mosque,  two  days  before  his  death, 
asked  if  he  had  injured  any  man?  Let  his  own 
back  bear  the  stripes.  If  he  owed  any  man?  A  voice 
answered,  "Yes,  me  three  drachms,"  borrowed  on 
such  an  occasion.  Mahomet  ordered  them  to  be  paid: 
"Better  be  in  shame  now,"  said  he,  "  than  at  the  day 


LECT.  IT.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  91 

of  judgment." — You  remember  Kadijah,  and  the 
"No,  by  Allah!"  Traits  of  that  kind  show  us  the 
genuine  man,  the  brother  of  us  all,  brought  visible 
through  twelve  centuries, — the  veritable  Son  of  our 
common  Mother. 

Withal  I  like  Mahomet  for  his  total  freedom  from 
cant.  He  is  a  rough  self-helping  son  of  the  wilder- 
ness; does  not  pretend  to  be  what  he  is  not.  There 
is  no  ostentatious  pride  in  him;  but  neither  does  he 
go  much  upon  humility:  he  is  there  as  he  can  be,  in 
cloak  and  shoes  of  his  own  clouting;  speaks  plainly 
to  all  manner  of  Persian  Kings,  Greek  Emperors, 
what  it  is  they  are  bound  to  do;  knows  well  enough, 
about  himself,  "  the  respect  due  unto  thee."  . 

In  a  life-and-death  war  with  Bedouins,  cruel  things 
could  not  fail;  but  neither  are  acts  of  mercy,  of  no- 
ble, natural  pity  and  generosity,  wanting.  Mahomet 
/  makes  no  apology  for  the  one,  no  boast  of  the  other.) 
They  were  each  the  free  dictate  of  his  heart:  each 
called  for,  there  and  then.  Not  a  mealy-mouthed 
man!  A  candid  ferocity,  if  the  case  call  for  it,  is  in 
him;  he  does  not  mince  matters!  The  war  of  Tabuc 
is  a  thing  he  often  speaks  of:  his  men  refused,  many 
of  them,  to  march  on  that  occasion;  pleaded  the 
heat  of  the  weather,  the  harvest,  and  so  forth;  he 
can  never  forget  that.  Your  harvest?  It  lasts  for  a 
day.  What  will  become  of  your  harvest  through  all 
Eternity?  Hot  weather?  Yes,  it  was  hot;  but  "  Hell 
will  be  hotter!"  Sometimes  a  rough  sarcasm  turns 
up:  He  says  to  the  unbelievers,  Ye  shall  have  the 
just  measure  of  your  deeds  at  that  Great  Day.  They 
will  be  weighed  out  to  you;  ye  shall  not  have  short 
weight! — Every  where  he  fixes  the  matter  in  his  eye; 
he  sees  it:  his  heart,  now  and  then,  is  as  if  struck 


92  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

dumb  by  the  greatness  of  it.  "  Assuredly,"  he  says: 
that  word  in  the  Koran,  is  written  down  sometimes 
as  a  sentence  by  itself:  "  Assuredly." 

No  Dilettantism  in  this  Mahomet;  it  is  a  business 
of  Reprobation  and  Salvation  with  him,  of  Time  and 
Eternity;  he  is  in  deadly  earnest  about  it!  Dilettan- 
tism, hypothesis,  speculation,  a  kind  of  amateur- 
search  for  Truth,  toying  and  coquetting  with  Truth, 
this  is  the  sorest  sin.  The  root  of  all  other  imagina- 
ble sins.  It  consists  in  the  heart  and  soul  of  the 
man  never  having  been  open  to  Truth; — "living  in 
a  vain  show."  Such  a  man  not  only  utters  and  pro- 
duces falsehoods,  but  is  himself  a  falsehood.*  The 
rational  moral  principle,  spark  of  the  Divinity,  is 
sunk  deep  in  him,  in  quiet  paralysis  of  life-death. 
The  very  falsehoods  of  Mahomet  are  truer  than  the 
truths  of  such  a  man.  He  is  the  insincere  man: 
smooth-polished, respectable  in  some  times  and  places; 
inoffensive,  says  nothing  harsh  to  any  body;  most 
cleanly^ — just  as  carbonic  acid  is,  which  is  death 
and  poison. 

We  will  not  praise  Mahomet's  moral  precepts  as 
always  of  the  superfinest  sort;  yet  it  can  be  said  that 
there  is  always  a  tendency  to  good  in  them:  that 
they  are  the  true  dictates  of  a  heart  aiming  towards 
what  is  just  and  true.  The  sublime  forgiveness  of 
Christianity,  turning  of  the  other  cheek  when  the 
one  has  been  smitten,  is  not  here;  you  are  to  re- 
venge yourself,  but  it  is  to  be  in  measure,  not  over 
much  nor  beyond  justice.  On  the  other  hand,  Islam, 
like  any  great  Faith,  and  insight  into  the  essence  of 
man,  is  a  perfect  equalizer  of  men:  the  soul  of  one 
believer  outweighs  all  earthly  kingships;  all  men, 
according  to  Islam  too,  are  equal.     Mahomet  insists 


LECT.  II.        THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  93 

not  on  the  propriety  of  giving  alms,  but  on  the  ne- 
cessity of  it:  he  marks  down  by  law  how  much  you 
are  to  give,  and  it  is  at  your  peril  if  you  neglect. 
The  tenth  part  of  man's  annual  income,  whatever 
that  may  be,  is  the  property  of  the  poor,  of  those  that 
are  afflicted  and  need  help.  Good  all  this:  the  natu- 
ral voice  of  humanity,  of  pity  and  equity  dwelling 
in  the  heart  of  this  wild  Son  of  Nature  speaks  so. 

Mahomet's  Paradise  is  sensual,  his  Hell  sensual: 
true;  in  the  one  and  the  other  there  is  enough  that 
shocks  all  spiritual  feeling  in  us.  But  we  are  to  re- 
collect that  the  Arabs  already  had  it  so;  that  Ma- 
homet, in  whatever  he  changed  of  it,  softened  and 
diminished  all  this.  The  worst  sensualities,  too,  are 
the  work  of  doctors,  followers  of  his,  not  his  work. 
In  the  Koran  there  is  really  very  little  said  about  the 
joys  of  Paradise;  they  are  intimated  rather  than  in- 
sisted on.  Nor  is  it  forgotten  that  the  highest  joys 
even  there  shall  be  spiritual;  the  Pure  Presence  of 
the  Highest,  this  shall  infinitely  transcend  all  other 
joys.  He  says,  "  Your  salutation  shall  be,  Peace." 
Salam,  Have  Peace! — the  thing  that  all  rational  souls 
long  for,  and  seek,  vainly  here  below,  as  the  one 
blessing.  "Ye  shall  sit  on  seats,  facing  one  another: 
all  grudges  shall  be  taken  away  out  of  your  hearts." 
All  grudges!  Ye  shall  love  one  another  freely;  for 
each  of  you,  in  the  eyes  of  his  brothers,  there  will 
be  Heaven  enough ! 

In  reference  to  this  of  the  sensual  Paradise  and 
Mahomet's  sensuality,  the  sorest  chapter  of  all  for 
us,  there  were  many  things  to  be  said;  which  it  is 
not  convenient  to  enter  upon  here.  Two  remarks 
only  I  shall  make,  and  therewith  leave  it  to  your 
candour.  The  first  is  furnished  me  by  Goethe;  it  is 
8* 


94  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET. 

a  casual  hint  of  his  which  seems  well  worth  taking 
note  of.  In  one  of  his  delineations,  in  Meister's 
Travels  it  is,  the  hero  comes  upon  a  Society  of  men 
with  very  strange  ways,  one  of  which  was  this:  "  We 
require,"  says  the  Master,  "  that  each  of  our  people 
shall  restrict  himself  in  one  direction,"  shall  go  right 
against  his  desire  in  one  matter,  and  make  himself 
do  the  thing  he  does  not  wish, "  should  we  allow  him 
the  greater  latitude  on  all  other  sides."  There  seems 
to  me  a  great  justness  in  this.  Enjoying  things 
which  are  pleasant;  that  is  not  the  evil:  it  is  the 
reducing  of  our  moral  self  to  slavery  by  them  that 
is.  Let  a  man  assert  withal  that  he  is  king  over  his 
habitudes;  that  he  could  and  would  shake  them  off, 
on  cause  shown;  this  is  an  excellent  law.  The 
month  Ramadhan  for  the  Moslem,  much  in  Ma- 
homet's Religion,  much  in  his  own  Life,  bears  in 
that  direction;  if  not  by  forethought,  or  clear  pur- 
pose of  moral  improvement  on  his  part,  then  by  a 
certain  healthy  manful  instinct,  which  is  as  good. 

But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  said  about  the  Ma- 
hometan Heaven  and  Hell.  This,  namely,  that  how- 
ever gross  and  material  they  may  be,  they  are  an 
emblem  of  an  everlasting  truth,  not  always  so  well 
remembered  elsewhere.  That  gross  sensual  Para- 
dise of  his;  that  horrible  naming  Hell;  the  great 
enormous  Day  of  Judgment  he  perpetually  insists 
on:  what  is  all  this  but  a  rude  shadow,  in  the  rude 
Bedouin  imagination,  of  that  grand  spiritual  Fact, 
and  Beginning  of  Facts,  which  it  is  ill  for  us  too  if 
we  do  not  all  know  and  feel:  the  Infinite  Nature  of 
Duty?  That  man's  actions  here  are  of  infinite  mo- 
ment to  him,  and  never  die  or  end  at  all;  that  man, 
with  his  little  life,  reaches  upwards  high  as  Heaven, 


LECT.  II.      THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  95 

downwards  low  as  Hell,  and  in  his  three-score  years 
of  Time  holds  an  Eternity  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
hidden:   all  this  had  burnt  itself,  as  in  flame-charac- 
ters, into  the  wild  Arab  soul.    As  in  flame  and  light- 
ning, it  stands  written   there;  awful,  unspeakable, 
ever  present  to  him.      With  bursting  earnestness, 
with  a  fierce  savage  sincerity,  half-articulating,  not 
able  to  articulate,  he  strives  to  speak  it,  bodies  it 
forth  in  that  Heaven  and  that  Hell.    Bodied  forth  in 
what  way  you  will,  it  is  the  first  of  all  truths.     It  is 
venerable  under  all  imbodiments.    What  is  the  chief 
end  of  man  here  below?      Mahomet  has  answered 
this  question,  in  a  way  that  might  put  some  of  us  to 
shame!     He  doe's  not,  like  a  Bentham,  a  Paley,  take 
Right  and  Wrong,  and  calculate  the  profit  and  loss, 
ultimate  pleasure  of  the  one  and  of  the  other;  and 
summing  all  up  by  addition  and  subtraction  into  a 
net  result,  ask  you,  Whether  on  the  whole  the  Right 
does  not  preponderate  considerably?     No:  it  is  not 
better  to  do  the  one  than  the  other;  the  one  is  to  the 
other  as  life  is  to  death,— as  Heaven  is  to  Hell.    The 
one  must  in  nowise  be  done,  the  other  in  nowise  left 
undone.     You  shall  not  measure  them:  they  are  in- 
commensurable: the  one  is  death  eternal  to  a  man, 
the  other  is  Life  eternal.     Benthamee  Utility,  virtue 
by  Profit  and  Loss;  reducing  this  God's-world  to  a 
dead  brute  Steam-engine,  the  infinite  celestial  Soul 
of  Man  to  a  kind  of  Hay-balance  for  weighing  hay 
and  thistles  on,  pleasures  and  pains  on: — If  you  ask 
me  which  gives,  Mahomet  or  they,  the  beggarlier 
and  falser  view  of  Man  and  his  Destinies  in  this 

Universe,  I  will  answer,  It  is  not  Mahomet! 

On  the  whole,  we  will  repeat  that  this  religion  of 
Mahomet's  is  a  kind  of  Christianity;  has  a  genuine 


j96  the  hero  as  prophet. 

element  of  what  is  spiritually  highest  looking  through 
it,  not  to  be  hidden  by  all  its  imperfections.  The 
Scandinavian  God  Wish  the  god  of  all  rude  men, — 
this  has  been  enlarged  into  a  Heaven  by  Mahomet; 
but  a  heaven  symbolical  of  sacred  Duty,  and  to  be 
earned  by  faith  and  well  doing,  by  valiant  action, 
and  a  divine  patience  which  is  still  more  valiant.  It 
is  Scandinavian  Paganism,  and  a  truly  celestial  ele- 
ment superadded  to  that.  Call  it  not  false;  look  not 
at  the  falsehood  of  it,  look  at  the  truth  of  it.  For 
these  twelve  centuries,  it  has  been  the  religion  and 
life-guidance  of  tbe  fifth  part  of  the  whole  kindred 
of  mankind.  Above  all  things  it  has  been  a  religion 
heartily  believed.  These  Arabs  believe  their  religion, 
and  try  to  live  by  it!  No  Christians,  since  the  early 
ages,  or  only  perhaps  the  English  Puritans  in  modern 
times,  have  ever  stood  by  their  Faith  as  the  Moslems 
do  by  theirs, — believing  it  wholly,  fronting  Time  with 
it,  and  Eternity  with  it.  This  night  the  watchman 
on  the  streets  of  Cairo  when  he  cries,  "Who  goes?" 
will  hear  from  the  passenger,  along  with  his  answer, 
"There  is  no  God  but  God."  Allah  akbar,  Islam, 
sounds  through  the  souls,  and  whole  daily  existence, 
of  these  dusky  millions.  Zealous  missionaries  preach 
it  abroad  among  Malays,  black  Papuans,  brutal  Idola- 
ters;— displacing  what  is  worse,  nothing  that  is  bet- 
ter or  good. 

To  the  Arab  Nation  it  was  a  birth  from  darkness 
into  light;  Arabia  first  became  alive  by  means  of  it. 
A  poor  shepherd  jueople,  roaming  unnoticed  in  its 
deserts  since  the  creation  of  the  world:  a  Hero- 
Prophet  was  sent  down  to  them  with  a  word  they 
could  believe:  see,  the  unnoticed  becomes  world- 
notable,  the  small  has  grown   world-great;   within 


LECT.  II.  *THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  97 

one  century  afterwards,  Arabia  is  at  Grenada  on  this 
hand,  at  Delhi  on  that; — glancing  in  valour  and 
splendour  and  the  light  of  genius,  Arabia  shines 
through  long  ages  over  a  great  section  of  the  world. 
Belief  is  great,  life-giving.  The  history  of  a  Nation 
becomes  fruitful,  soul-elevating,  great,  so  soon  as  it 
believes.  These  Arabs,  the  man  Mahomet,  and  that 
one  century, — is  it  not  as  if  a  spark  had  fallen,  one 
spark,  on  a  world  of  what  seemed  black  unnotice- 
able  sand;  but  lo,  the  sand  proves  explosive  powder, 
blazes  heaven  high  from  Delhi  to  Grenada!  I  said, 
the  Great  Man  was  always  as  lightning  out  of  Hea- 
ven; the  rest  of  men  waited  for  him  like  fuel,  and 
then  they  too  would  flame. 


LECTURE  III. 

[Tuesday,  12th  May,  1840.] 
THE    HERO    AS    POET. — DANTE:    SHAKSPEARE. 

The  Hero  as  Divinity,  the  Hero  as  Prophet,  are 
productions  of  old  ages;  not  to  be  repeated  in  the 
new.  They  presuppose  a  certain  rudeness  of  concep- 
tion, which  the  progress  of  mere  scientific  knowledge 
puts  an  end  to.  There  needs  to  be,  as  it  were,  a 
world  vacant,  or  almost  vacant  of  scientific  forms,  if 
men  in  their  loving  wonder  are  to  fancy  their  fellow- 
man  either  a  god  or  one  speaking  with  the  voice  of 
a  god.  Divinity  and  Prophet  are  past.  We  are  now 
to  see  our  Hero  in  the  less  ambitious,  but  also  less 
questionable,  character  of  Poet;  a  character  which 
does  not  pass.  The  Poet  is  a  heroic  figure  belonging 
to  all  ages;  whom  all  ages  possess,  when  once  he  is 
produced,  whom  the  newest  age  as  the  oldest  may 
produce; — and  will  produce,  always  when  Nature 
pleases.  Let  Nature  send  a  Hero-soul;  in  no  age  is 
it  other  than  possible  that  he  may  be  shaped  into  a 
Poet. 

Hero,  Prophet,  Poet, — many  different  names,  in 
different  times  and  places,  do  we  give  to  Great  Men; 
according  to  varieties  we  note  in  them,  according  to 
the  sphere  in  which  they  have  displayed  themselves! 
We  might  give  many  more  names,  on  this  same 
principle.     I  will  remark  again,  however,  as  a  fact 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  99 

not  unimportant  to  be  understood,  that  the  different 
sphere  constitutes  the  grand  origin  of  such  distinction; 
that  the  Hero  can  be  a  Poet,  Prophet,  King,  Priest  or 
what  you  will,  according  to  the  kind  of  world  he 
finds  himself  born  into.  I  confess,  I  have  no  notion 
of  a  truly  great  man  that  could  not  be  all  sorts  of  men. 
The  Poet  who  could  merely  sit  on  a  chair  and  com- 
pose stanzas,  would  never  make  a  stanza  worth  much. 
He  could  not  sing  the  Heroic  warrior,  unless  he  him- 
self were  at  least  a  Heroic  warrior  too.  I  fancy  there 
is  in  him  the  Politician,  the  Thinker,  Legislator, 
Philosopher; — in  one  or  the  other  degree,  he  could 
have  been,  he  is  all  these.  So  too  1  cannot  under- 
stand how  a  Mirabeau,  with  that  great  glowing  heart, 
with  the  fire  that  was  in  it,  with  the  bursting  tears 
that  were  in  it,  could  not  have  written  verses,  trage- 
dies, poems,  and  touched  all  hearts  in  that  way,  had 
his  course  of  life  and  education  led  him  thitherward. 
The  grand  fundamental  character  is  that  of  Great 
Man;  that  the  man  be  great.  Napoleon  has  words 
in  him  which  are  like  Austerlitz  Battles.  Louis 
Fourteenth's  Marshals  are  a  kind  of  poetical  men 
withal;  the  things  Turenne  says  are  full  of  sagacity 
and  geniality,  like  sayings  of  Samuel  Johnson.  The 
great  heart,  the  clear  deep-seeing  eye:  there  it  lies; 
no  man  whatever,  in  what  province  soever,  can  pros- 
per at  all  without  these.  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  did 
diplomatic  messages,  it  seems,  quite  well:  one  can 
easily  believe  it;  they  had  done  things  a  little  harder 
than  that !  Burns,  a  gifted  song-writer,  might  have 
made  a  still  better  Mirabeau.  Shakspeare, — one 
knows  not  what  he  could  not  have  made,  in  the  su- 
preme degree. 

True,  there  are  aptitudes  of  Nature  too.     Nature 


100  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

does  not  make  all  great  men,  more  than  all  other 
men,  in  the  self-same  mould.  Varieties  of  aptitude 
doubtless;  but  infinitely  more  of  circumstance;  and 
far  oftenest  it  is  the  latter  only  that  are  looked  to. 
But  it  is  as  with  common  men  in  the  learning  of 
trades.  You  take  any  man,  as  yet  a  vague  capabi- 
lity of  a  man,  who  could  be  any  kind  of  craftsman; 
and  make  him  into  a  smith,  a  carpenter,  a  mason: 
he  is  then  and  thenceforth  that  and  nothing  else. 
And  if,  as  Addison  complains,  you  sometimes  see  a 
street-porter  staggering  under  his  load  on  spindle- 
shanks,  and  near  at  hand  a  tailor  with  the  frame  of 
a  Samson,  handling  a  bit  of  cloth  and  small  White- 
chapel  needle, — it  cannot  be  considered  that  aptitude 
of  Nature  alone  has  been  consulted  here  either ! — 
The  Great  Man  also,  to  what  shall  he  be  bound 
apprentice  ?  Given  your  Hero,  is  he  to  become 
Conqueror,  King,  Philosopher,  Poet?  It  is  an  inex- 
plicably complex  controversial-calculation  between 
the  world  and  him!  He  will  read  the  world  and  its 
laws;  the  world  with  its  laws  will  be  there  to  be 
read.  What  the  world,  on  this  matter,  shall  permit 
and  bid  is,  as  we  said,  the  most  important  fact  about 
the  world. 

Poet  and  Prophet  differ  greatly  in  our  loose  modern 
notions  of  them.  In  some  old  languages,  again,  the 
titles  are  synonymous:  Vates  means  both  Prophet 
and  Poet:  and  indeed  at  all  times,  Prophet  and  Poet, 
well  understood,  have  much  kindred  of  meaning. 
Fundamentally  indeed  they  are  still  the  same;  in 
this  most  important  respect  especially,  That  they 
have  penetrated  both  of  them  into  the  sacred  mystery 
of  the  Universe;  what  Goethe  calls  "  the  open  secret!" 
"Which  is  the  great  secret?"  asks  one. — "  The  open 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  101 

secret," — open  to  all,  seen  by  almost  none?  That 
divine  mystery,  which  lies  eve^  where  in  all  Beings, 
"  the  Divine  Idea  of  the  World,  that  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  Appearance,"  as  Fichte  styles  it;  of 
which  all  Appearance,  from  the  starry  sky  to  the 
grass  of  the  field,  but  especially  the  Appearance  of 
Man  and  his  work,  is  but  the  vesture,  the  imbodiment 
that  renders  it  visible.  This  divine  mystery  is  in  all 
times  and  in  all  places;  veritably  is.  In  most  times 
and  places  it  is  greatly  overlooked;  and  the  Universe, 
definable  always  in  one  or  the  other  dialect,  as  the 
realized  Thought  of  God,  is  considered  a  trivial,  inert, 
common-place  matter, — as  if,  says  the  Satirist,  it  were 
a  dead  thing,  which  some  upholsterer  had  put  toge- 
ther! It  could  do  no  good,  at  present,  to  speak  much 
about  this ;  but  it  is  a  pity  for  every  one  of  us  if  we 
do  not  know  it,  live  ever  in  the  knowledge  of  it. 
Really  a  most  mournful  pity; — a  failure  to  live  at  all, 
if  we  live  otherwise! 

But  now,  I  say,  whoever  may  forget  this  divine 
mystery,  the  Vates,  whether  Prophet  or  Poet  has 
penetrated  into  it;  is  a  man  sent  hither  to  make  it 
more  impressively  known  to  us.  That  always  is  his 
message;  he  is  to  reveal  that  to  us, — that  sacred 
mystery  which  he  more  than  others  lives  ever  pre- 
sent with.  While  others  forget  it,  he  knows  it;  I 
might  say,  he  has  been  driven  to  know  it;  without 
consent  asked  of  him,  lie  finds  himself  living  in  it, 
bound  to  live  in  it.  Once  more,  here  is  no  Hearsay, 
but  a  direct  Insight  and  Belief;  this  man  too  could 
not  help  being  a  sincere  man!  Whosoever  may  live 
in  the  show  of  things,  it  is  for  him  a  necessity  of 
nature  to  live  in  the  very  fact  of  things.  A  man, 
once  more,  in  earnest  with  the  Universe,  though  all 
9 


102  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

others  were  but  toying  with  it.  He  is  a  Vates,  first 
of  all,  in  virtue  of  being  sincere.  So  far  Poet  and 
Prophet,  participators  in  the  "open  secret,"  are  one. 

With  respect  to  their  distinction  again:  The  Vates 
Prophet,  we  might  say,  has  seized  that  sacred  mys- 
tery rather  on  the  moral  side,  as  Good  and  Evil,  Duty 
and  Prohibition;  the  Vates  Poet  on  what  the  Germans 
call  the  aesthetic  side,  as  Beautiful,  and  the  like.  The 
one  we  may  call  a  revealer  of  what  we  are  to  do,  the 
other  of  what  we  are  to  love.  But  indeed  these  two 
provinces  run  into  one  another,  and  cannot  be  dis- 
joined. The  Prophet  too  has  his  eye  on  what  we 
are  to  love:  how  else  shall  he  know  what  it  is  we 
are  to  do?  The  highest  Voice  ever  heard  on  this 
Earth  said  withal,  "Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field-, 
they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin:  yet  Solomon  in 
all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these."  A 
glance,  that,  into  the  deepest  deep  of  beauty.  "  The 
lilies  of  the  field," — dressed  finer  than  earthly  princes, 
springing  up  there  in  the  humble  furrow-field;  a  beau- 
tiful eye  looking  out  on  you,  from  the  great  inner  Sea 
of  Beauty!  How  could  the  rude  Earth  make  these, 
if  her  Essence,  rugged  as  she  looks  and  is,  were  not 
inwardly  Beauty? — In  this  point  of  view,  too,  a  say- 
ing of  Goethe's  which  has  staggered  several,  may 
have  meaning:  "The  Beautiful/' he  intimates,  "is 
higher  than  the  Good;  the  Beautiful  includes  in  it 
the  Good."  The  true  Beautiful;  which,  however,  1 
have  said  somewhere,  "differs  from  the  false,  as  Hea- 
ven does  from  Vauxhall!"  So  much  for  the  distinc- 
tion and  identity  of  Poet  and  Prophet. — 

In  ancient  and  also  in  modern  periods,  we  find  a 
few  Poets  who  are  accounted  perfect;  whom  it  were 
a  kind  of  treason  to  find  fault  with.     This  is  note- 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  103 

Worthy;  this  is  right:  yet  in  strictness  it  is  only  an 
illusion.  At  bottom,  clearly  enough,  there  is  no  per- 
fect Poet.  A  vein  of  Poetry  exists  in  the  hearts  of  all 
men:  no  man  is  made  altogether  of  Poetry.  We  are 
all  poets  when  we  read  a  poem  well.  The  "imagi- 
nation that  shudders  at  the  Hell  of  Dante,"  is  not  that 
the  same  faculty,  weaker  in  degree,  as  Dante's  own? 
No  one  but  Shakspeare  can  imbody,  out  of  Saxo 
Grammaticns,  the  story  of  Hamlet  as  Shakspeare 
did  :  but  every  one  models  some  kind  of  story  out  of  it; 
every  one  imbodies  it  better  or  worse.  We  need  not 
spend  time  in  denning.  Where  there  is  no  specific 
difference,  as  between  round  and  square,  all  defini- 
tion must  be  more  or  less  arbitrary.  A  man  that  has 
so  much  more  of  the  poetic  element  developed  in  him 
as  to  have  become  noticeable,  will  be  called  Poet  by 
his  neighbours.  World-Poets  too,  those  whom  we 
are  to  take  for  perfect  Poets,  are  settled  by  critics  in 
the  same  way.  One  who  rises  so  far  above  the  ge- 
neral level  of  Poets  will,  to  such  and  such  critics, 
seem  a  Universal  Poet;  as  he  ought  to  do.  And  yet 
it  is,  and  must  be,  an  arbitrary  distinction.  All  Poets, 
all  men,  have  some  touches  of  the  Universal;  no 
man  is  wholly  made  of  that.  Most  Poets  are  very 
soon  forgotten;  but  not  the  noblest  Shakspeare  or 
Homer  of  them  can  be  remembered  for  ever; — a  day 
comes  when  he  too  is  not! 

Nevertheless,  j^ou  will  say,  there  must  be  a  dif- 
ference between  true  Poetry  and  true  Speech  not 
poetical:  what  is  the  difference?  On  this  point  many 
things  have  been  written,  especially  by  late  German 
Critics,  some  of  which  are  not  very  intelligible  at  first. 
They  say,  for  example,  that  the  Poet  has  an  infini- 
tude in  him;  communicates  an  Unendlichkeit,  a  cer 


104  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

tain  character  of  "  infinitude  "  to  whatsoever  he  deli- 
neates. This,  though  not  very  precise,  yet  on  so 
vague  a  matter  is  worthy  remembering;  if  well  me- 
ditated, some  meaning  can  gradually  be  found  in  it. 
For  my  own  part,  I  find  considerable  meaning  in 
the  old  vulgar  distinction  of  Poetry  being  metrical, 
having  music  in  it,  being  a  Song.  Truly,  if  pressed  to 
give  a  definition,  one  might  say  this  as  soon  as  any 
thing  else:  If  your  delineation  be  authentically  musi- 
cal, musical  not  in  word  only,  but  in  heart  and  sub- 
stance, in  all  the  thoughts  and  utterances  of  it,  in  the 
whole  conception  of  it,  then  it  will  be  poetical;  if  not, 
not. — Musical:  how  much  lies  in  that!  A  musical 
thought  is  one  spoken  by  a  mind  that  has  penetrated 
into  the  inmost  heart  of  the  thing;  detected  the  in- 
most mystery  of  it,  namely  the  melody  that  lies  hidden 
in  it;  the  inward  harmony  of  coherence  which  is  its 
soul;  whereby  it  exists,  and  has  a  right  to  be  here  in 
this  world.  All  inmost  things,  we  may  say,  are  me- 
lodious; naturally  utter  themselves  in  Song.  The 
meaning  of  Song  goes  deep.  Who  is  there  that,  in 
logical  words,  can  express  the  effect  music  has  on  us  ? 
A  kind  of  inarticulate  unfathomable  speech  which 
leads  us  to  the  edge  of  the  Infinite,  and  lets  us  for 
moments  gaze  into  that! 

Nay  all  speech,  even  the  commonest  speech,  has 
something  of  song  in  it:  not  a  parish  in  the  world 
but  has  its  parish-accent; — the  rhythm  or  tune  to 
which  the  people  there  sing  what  they  have  to  say! 
Accent  is  a  kind  of  chanting;  all  men  have  accent  of 
their  own, — though  they  only  notice  that  of  others. 
Observe  too  how  all  passionate  language  does  of  it- 
self become  musical, — with  a  finer  music  than  the 
mere  accent;  the  speech  of  a  man  even  in  zealous 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  105 

anger  becomes  a  chant,  a  Song.  All  deep  things 
are  Song.  It  seems  somehow  the  very  central  es- 
sence of  us,  Song;  as  if  all  the  rest  were  but  wrap- 
pages and  hulls!  The  primal  element  of  us;  of  us, 
and  of  all  things.  The  Greeks  fabled  of  Sphere- 
Harmonies:  it  was  the  feeling  they  had  of  the  inner 
structure  of  Nature;  that  the  soul  of  all  her  voices 
and  utterances  was  perfect  music.  Poetry,  therefore, 
we  will  call  musical  Thought.  The  Poet  is  he  who 
thinks  in  that  manner.  At  bottom,  it  turns  still  on 
power  of  intellect;  it  is  a  man's  sincerity  and  depth 
of  vision  that  makes  him  a  Poet.  See  deep  enough, 
and  you  see  musically;  the  heart  of  nature  being 
every  where  music,  if  you  can  only  reach  it. 

The  Vates  Poet,  with  his  melodious  Apocalypse  of 
Nature,  seems  to  hold  a  poor  rank  among  us,  in  com- 
parison with  the  Vates  Prophet;  his  function,  and  our 
esteem  of  him  for  his  function,  alike  slight.  The 
Hero  taken  as  Divinity;  the  Hero  taken  as  Prophet; 
then  next  the  Hero  taken  only  as  Poet:  does  it  not 
look  as  if  our  estimate  of  the  Great  Man,  epoch  after 
epoch,  were  continually  diminishing?  We  take  him 
first  for  a  god,  then  for  one  god-inspired;  and  now 
in  the  next  stage  of  it,  his  most  miraculous  word  gains 
from  us  only  the  recognition  that  he  is  a  Poet,  beau- 
tiful verse-maker,  man  of  genius,  or  such  like! — It 
looks  so;  but  I  persuade  myself  that  intrinsically  it 
is  not  so.  If  we  consider  well,  it  will  perhaps  appear 
that  in  man  still  there  is  the  same  altogether  peculiar 
admiration  for  the  Heroic  Gift,  by  what  name  soever 
called,  that  there  at  any  time  was.  I  should  say,  if 
we  do  not  now  reckon  a  Great  Man  literally  divine, 
i-t  is  that  our  notions  of  God,  of  the  supreme  unattain- 
able Fountain  of  Splendour,  Wisdom  and  Heroism, 
9* 


106  THE   HERO  AS  POET. 

are  ever  rising  higher;  not  altogether  that  our  reve- 
rence for  these  qualities,  as  manifested  in  our  like,  is 
getting  lower.      This  is  worth   taking  thought  of. 
Skeptical   Dilettantism,   the   curse  of  these  ages,  a 
curse  which  will  not  last  for  ever,  does  indeed  in  this 
the  highest  province  of  human  things,  as  in  all  pro- 
vinces, make  sad  work;  and  our  reverence  for  great 
men,  all  crippled,  blinded,  paralytic  as  it  is,  comes 
out  in  poor  plight,  hardly  recognisable.     Men  wor- 
ship the  shows  of  great  men;  the  most  disbelieve  that 
there  is  any  reality  of  great  men  to  worship.     The 
dreariest,  fatalest  faith  ;    believing  which   one  would 
literally  despair  of  human  things.    Nevertheless  look, 
for  example,  at  Napoleon!     A  Corsican  lieutenant  of 
artillery:  that  is  the  show  of  him:  yet  is  he  not  obey- 
ed, ivorshippcd  after  his  sort,  as  all  the  Tiaraed  and 
Diademed  of  the  world  put  together  could  not  be  ? 
High  duchesses,  and  ostlers  of  inns,  gather  round  the 
Scottish  rustic,  Burns; — a  strange  feeling  dwelling  in 
each  that  they  never  heard  a  man  like  this;  that  on 
the  whole  this  is  the  man!     In  the  secret  heart  of 
these  people  it  still  dimly  reveals  itself,  though  there 
is  no  accredited  way  of  uttering  it  at  present,  that  this 
rustic,  with  his  black  brows,  and  flashing  sun-eyes, 
and  strange  words  moving  laughter  and  tears,  is  of  a 
dignity  far  beyond  all  others,  incommensurable  with 
all  others.     Do  not  we  feel  it  so?     But  now,  were 
Dilettantism,  Skepticism,  Triviality,  and  all  that  sor- 
rowful brood  cast  out  of  us, — as,  by  God's  blessing, 
they  shall  one  day  be;  were  faith  in  the  shows  of 
things  entirely  swept  out,  replaced  by  clear  faith  in 
the  things,  so  that  a  man  acted  on  the  impulse  of  that 
only,  and  counted  the  other  non-extant,  what  a  new 
livelier  feeling  towards  this  Burns  were  it! 


LECT.  III.      THE  HERO  AS  POET.  107 

Nay  here  in  these  ages,  such  as  they  are,  have  we 
not  two  mere  Poets,  if  not  deified,  yet  we  may  say  be- 
atified? Shakspeare  and  Dante  are  Saints  of  Poetry; 
really,  if  we  will  think  of  it,  canonized,  so  that  it  is 
impiety  to  meddle  with  them.  The  unguided  instinct 
of  the  world,  working  across  all  these  perverse  im- 
pediments, has  arrived  at  such  result.  Dante  and 
Shakspeare  are  a  peculiar  Two.  They  dwell  apart, 
in  a  kind  of  royal  solitude;  none  equal,  none  second 
to  them:  in  the  general  feeling  of  the  world,  a  cer- 
tain transcendentalism,  a  glory  as  of  complete  perfec- 
tion, invests  these  two.  They  are  canonized,  though 
no  Pope  or  Cardinals  took  hand  in  doing  it!  Such, 
in  spite  of  every  perverting  influence,  in  the  most 
unheroic  times,  is  still  our  indestructible  reverence 
for  heroism. — We  will  look  a  little  at  these  Two,  the 
Poet  Dante  and  the  Poet  Shakspeare:  what  little  it 
is  permitted  us  to  say  here  of  the  Hero  as  Poet,  will 
most  fitly  arrange  itself  in  that  fashion. 

Many  volumes  have  been  written  by  way  of  com- 
mentary on  Dante  and  his  Book;  yet,  on  the  whole 
with  no  great  result.  His  Biography  is,  as  it  were, 
irrecoverably  lost  for  us.  An  unimportant,  wander- 
ing, sorrow-stricken  man,  not  much  note  was  taken 
of  him  while  he  lived;  and  the  most  of  that  has  va- 
nished, in  the  long  space  that  now  intervenes.  It  is 
five  centuries  since  he  ceased  writing  and  living  here. 
After  all  commentaries,  the  Book  itself  is  mainly 
what  we  know  of  him.  The  Book; — and  one  might 
add  that  Portrait  commonly  attributed  to  Giotto, 
which,  looking  on  it,  you  cannot  help  inclining  to 
think  genuine  whoever  did  it.  To  me  it  is  a  most 
touching  face;  perhaps  of  all  faces  that  I  know,  the 


10S  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

most  so.  Blank  there,  painted  on  vacancy,  with  the 
simple  laurel  wound  round  it;  the  deathless  sorrow 
and  pain,  the  known  victory  which  is  also  deathless; 
— significant  of  the  whole  history  of  Dante!  I  think 
it  is  the  mournfullest  face  that  ever  was  painted  from 
reality;  an  altogether  tragic,  heart-affecting  face. 
There  is  in  it,  as  foundation  of  it,  the  softness,  ten- 
derness, gentle  affection  as  of  a  child;  but  all  this  is 
as  if  congealed  into  sharp  contradiction,  into  abnega- 
tion, isolation,  proud  hopeless  pain.  A  soft  ethereal 
soul  looking  out  so  stern,  implacable,  grim-trenchant, 
as  from  imprisonment  of  thick-ribbed  ice!  Withal  it 
is  a  silent  pain  too,  a  silent  scornful  one:  the  lip  is 
curled  in  a  kind  of  god-like  disdain  of  the  thing  that  is 
eating  out  its  heart, — as  if  it  were  withal  a  mean  in- 
significant thing,  as  if  he  whom  it  had  power  to  torture 
and  strangle  were  greater  than  it.  The  face  of  one 
wholly  in  protest,  and  life-long  unsurrendering  bat- 
tle, against  the  world.  Affection  all  converted  into  in- 
dignation: an  implacable  indignation:  slow,  equable, 
implacable,  silent,  like  that  of  a  god!  The  eye  too, 
it  looks  out  as  in  a  kind  o£  surprise,  a  kind  of  inquiry, 
Why  the  world  was  of  such  a  sort?  This  is  Dante; 
so  he  looks,  this  "  voice  of  ten  silent  centuries,"  and 
sings  us  "his  mystic  unfathomable  song." 

The  little  that  we  know  of  Dante's  Life  corre- 
sponds well  enough  with  this  Portrait  and  this  Book. 
He  was  born  at  Florence,  in  the  upper  class  of  society, 
in  the  year  1265.  His  education  was  the  best  then 
going;  much  school-divinity,  Aristotelean  logic,  some 
Latin  classics, — no  inconsiderable  insight  into  certain 
provinces  of  things;  and  Dante,  with  his  earnest,  in- 
telligent nature,  we  need  not  doubt,  learned  better 
than  most  all  that  was   learnable.       He   has  a  clear 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  109 

cultivated  understanding,  and  of  great  subtlety;  this 
best  fruit  of  education  he  had  contrived  to  realize  from 
these  scholastics.  He  knows  accurately  and  well 
what  lies  close  to  him;  b«t,  in  such  a  time,  without 
printed  books  or  free  intercourse,  he  could  not  know 
well  what  was  distant:  the  small  clear  light,  most 
luminous  for  what  is  near,  breaks  itself  into  singular 
chiaroscuro  striking  on  what  is  far  off.  This  was 
Dante's  learning  from  the  schools.  In  life,  he  had 
gone  through  the  usual  destinies:  been  twice  out  cam- 
paigning as  a  soldier  for  the  Florentine  state,  been  on 
embassy;  had  in  his  thirty-fifth  year,  by  natural  gra- 
dation of  talent  and  service,  become  one  of  the  Chief 
Magistrates  of  Florence.  He  had  met  in  boyhood 
a  certain  Beatrice  Portinari,  a  beautiful  little  girl  of 
his  own  age  and  rank,  and  grown  up  thenceforth  in 
partial  sight  of  her,  in  some  distant  intercourse  with 
her.  All  readers  know  his  graceful  affecting  account 
of  this;  and  then  of  their  being  parted;  of  her  being 
wedded  to  another,  and  of  her  death  soon  after.  She 
makes  a  great  figure  in  Dante's  Poem;  seems  to  have 
made  a  great  figure  in  his  life.  Of  all  beings  it  might 
seem  as  if  she,  held  apart  from  him,  far  apart  at  last 
in  the  dim  Eternity,  were  the  only  one  he  had  ever 
with  his  whole  strength  of  affection  loved.  She  died: 
Dante  himself  was  wedded;  but  it  seems  not  happily, 
far  from  happily.  I  fancy,  the  rigorous  earnest  man, 
with  his  keen  excitabilities,  was  not  altogether  easy 
to  make  happy. 

We  will  not  complain  of  Dante's  miseries:  had  all 
gone  right  with  him  as  he  wished  it,  he  might  have 
been  Prior,  Podesta,  or  whatsoever  they  call  it,  of 
Florence,  well  accepted  among  neighbours, — and 
the  world  had  wanted  one  of  the  most  notable  words 


110  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

ever  spoken  or  sung.  Florence  had  another  prospe- 
rous Lord  Mayor;  and  the  ten  dumb  centuries  con- 
tinued voiceless,  and  the  ten  other  listening  centuries 
(for  there  will  be  ten  of  them  and  more)  had  no  Di- 
vina  Commedia  to  hear!  We  will  complain  of  nothing. 
A  nobler  destiny  was  appointed  for  this  Dante;  and 
he,  struggling  like  a  man  led  towards  death  and  cru- 
cifixion, could  not  help  fulfilling  it.  Give  him  the 
choice  of  his  happiness!  He  knew  not  more  than  we 
do  what  was  really  happy,  what  was  really  miserable. 

In  Dante's  Priorship,  the  Guelf-Ghibelline,  Bian- 
chi-Neri,  or  some  other  confused  disturbances  rose  to 
such  a  height,  that  Dante,  whose  party  had  seemed 
the  stronger,  was  with  his  friends  cast  unexpectedly 
forth  into  banishment;  doomed  thenceforth  to  a  life 
of  wo  and  wandering.  His  property  was  all  confis- 
cated and  more;  he  had  the  fiercest  feeling  that  it 
was  entirely  unjust,  nefarious  in  the  sight  of  God 
and  man.  He  tried  what  was  in  him  to  get  rein- 
stated ;  tried  even  by  warlike  surprisal,  with  arms  in 
his  hand:  but  it  would  not  do;  bad  only  had  become 
worse.  There  is  a  record,  I  believe,  still  extant  in 
the  Florence  Archives,  dooming  this  Dante,  where- 
soever caught,  to  be  burnt  alive.  Burnt  alive;  so  it 
stands,  they  say:  a  very  curious  civic  document. 
Another  curious  document,  some  considerable  num- 
ber of  years  later,  is  a  Letter  of  Dante's  to  the  Flo- 
rentine Magistrates,  written  in  answer  to  a  milder  pro- 
posal of  theirs,  that  he  should  return  on  condition  of 
apologizing  and  paying  a  fine.  He  answers  with  fixed, 
stern  pride,  "If  I  cannot  return  without  calling  my- 
self guilty,  I  will  never  return,  niinquam  revertar." 

For  Dante  there  was  now  no  home  in  this  world. 
He  wandered  from  patron  to  patron,  from  place  to 


LECT.  III.  THE  HERO  AS  rOET.  Ill 

place;  proving,  in  his  own  bitter  words,  "How  hard 
is  the  path,  Come  e  duro  calle"  The  wretched  are 
not  cheerful  company.  Dante,  poor  and  banished, 
with  his  proud  earnest  nature,  with  his  moody  hu- 
mours, was  not  a  man  to  conciliate  men.  Petrarch 
reports  of  him  that  being  at  Can  della  Scala's  court, 
and  blamed  one  day  for  his  gloom  and  taciturnity,  he 
answered  in  no  courtier-like  way.  Della  Scala  stood 
among  his  courtiers,  with  mimes  and  buffoons  (iiebu- 
lones  ac  histriones)  making  him  heartily  merry;  when 
turning  to  Dante,  he  said:  "Is  it  not  strange  now 
that  this  poor  fool  should  do  so  much  to  amuse  us, 
while  you,  a  wise  man,  sit  there  day  after  day,  and 
have  nothing  to  amuse  us  with  at  all?"  Dante  an- 
swered bitterly  :  "No,  it  is  not  strange,  if  you  think 
of  the  proverb,  Like  to  Like;" — given  the  amuser, 
the  amusee  must  also  be  given  !  Such  a  man,  with 
his  proud  silent  ways,  with  his  sarcasms  and  sorrows, 
was  not  made  to  succeed  at  court.  By  degrees,  it 
came  to  be  evident  to  him  that  he  had  no  longer 
any  resting  place,  or  hope  of  benefit,  in  this  earth. 
The  earthly  world  had  cast  him  forth,  to  wander, 
wander;  no  living  heart  to  love  him  now;  for  his 
sore  miseries  there  was  no  solace  here. 

The  deeper  naturally  would  the  Eternal  World 
impress  itself  on  him;  that  awful  reality  over  which, 
after  all,  this  Time-world,  with  its  Florences  and 
banishments,  only  flutters  as  an  unreal  shadow. 
Florence  thou  shalt  never  see:  but  Hell  and  Purga- 
tory and  Heaven  thou  shalt  surely  see!  What  is 
Florence,  Can  della  Scala,  and  the  World  and  Life 
altogether?  Eternity:  thither,  of  a  truth,  not 
elsewhither,  art  thou  and  all  things  bound!  The 
great  soul   of  Dante,  homeless  on  earth,  made  its 


112  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

home  more  and  more  in  that  awful  other  world. 
Naturally  his  thoughts  brooded  on  that,  as  on  the 
one  fact  important  for  him.  Bodied  or  bodiless,  it 
is  the  one  fact  important  for  all  men: — but  to  Dante, 
in  that  age,  it  was  bodied  in  fixed  certainty  of  scien- 
tific shape;  he  no  more  doubted  of  that  Malebo/ge 
Pool,  that  it  all  lay  there  with  its  gloomy  circles, 
with  its  altiguai,  and  that  he  himself  should  see  it, 
than  we  doubt  that  we  should  see  Constantinople  if 
we  went  thither.  Dante's  heart,  long  filled  with  this, 
brooding  over  it  in  speechless  thought  and  awe,  burst 
forth  at  length  into  "mystic  unfathomable  song;" 
and  this  his  Divine  Comedy,  the  most  remarkable  of 
all  modern  Books,  is  the  result.  It  must  have  been 
a  great  solacement  to  Dante,  and  was,  as  we  can  see, 
a  proud  thought  for  him  at  times,  that  he,  here  in 
exile,  could  do  this  work;  that  no  Florence,  nor  no 
man  or  men,  could  hinder  him  from  doing  it,  or  even 
much  help  him  in  doing  it.  He  knew  too  partly, 
that  it  was  great;  the  greatest  a  man  could  do.  "  If 
thou  follow  thy  star,  Se  tu  segui  la  tua  stella  " — so 
could  the  Hero,  in  his  forsakenness,  in  his  extreme 
need,  still  say  to  himself:  "Follow  thy  star,  thou 
shalt  not  fail  of  a  glorious  heaven  !"  The  labour 
of  writing,  we  find,  and  indeed  could  know  other- 
wise, was  great  and  painful  for  him;  he  says,  This 
Book  "which  has  made  me  lean  for  many  years." 
Ah  yes,  it  was  won,  all  of  it,  with  pain  and  sore  toil, 
— not  in  sport,  but  in  grim  earnest.  His  Book,  as 
indeed  most  good  Books  are,  has  been  written,  in 
many  senses  with  his  heart's  blood.  It  is  his  whole 
history  this  Book.  He  died  after  finishing  it;  not 
yet  very  old,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six ; — broken-heart- 
ed rather,  as  is  said.     He  lies  buried  in  his  death- 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  113 

city  Ravenna:  Hie  claudor  Dantes  pair  Us  extorris 
aborts.  The  Florentines  begged  back  his  body,  in  a 
century  after;  the  Ravenna  people  would  not  give  it. 
"  Here  am  I  Dante  laid,  shut  out  from  my  native 
shores." 

I  said,  Dante's  Poem  was  a  song:  it  is  Tieck  who 
calls  it  "a  mystic  unfathomable  Song;"  and  such  is 
literally  the  character  of  it.  Coleridge  remarks  very 
pertinently  somewhere,  that  wherever  you  find  a 
sentence  musically  worded,  if  true  rhythm  and 
melody  in  the  words,  there  is  something  deep  and 
good  in  the  meaning  too.  For  body  and  soul,  word 
and  idea,  go  strangely  together,  here  as  every  where. 
Song:  we  said  before,  it  was  the  Heroic  of  Speech! 
All  old  Poems,  Homer's  and  the  rest,  are  authenti- 
cally Songs.  I  would  say,  in  strictness,  that  all  right 
Poems  are;  that  whatsoever  is  not  sung-  is  properly 
no  Poem,  but  a  piece  of  Prose  cramped  into  jingling 
lines, — to  the  great  injury  of  the  grammar,  to  the 
great  grief  of  the  reader,  for  most  part!  What  we  want 
to  get  at  is  the  thought  the  man  had,  if  he  had  any: 
why  should  he  twist  it  into  jingle,  if  he  could  speak 
it  out  plainly?  '  It  is  only  when  the  heart  of  him  is 
rapt  into  true  passion  of  melody,  and  the  very  tones 
of  him,  according  to  Coleridge's  remark,  become 
musical  by  the  greatness,  depth,  and  music  of  his 
thoughts,  that  we  can  give  him  right  to  rhyme  and 
sing;  that  we  call  him  a  Poet,  and  listen  to  him  as 
the  Heroic  of  Speakers,  whose  speech  is  Song.  Pre- 
tenders to  this  are  many;  and  to  an  earnest  reader,  1 
doubt,  it  is  for  most  part  a  very  melancholy,  not  to 
say  an  insupportable  business,  that  of  reading  rhyme ! 
Rhyme  that  had  no  inward  necessity  to  be  rhymed ; 
—it  ought  to  have  told  us  plainly,  without  any  jingle, 
10 


114  THE   HERO  A3  POET. 

what  it  was  aiming  at.  I  would  advise  all  men  who 
can  speak  their  thought,  not  to  sing  it;  to  understand 
that,  in  a  serious  time,  among  serious  men,  there  is 
no  vocation  in  them  for  singing  it.  Precisely  as  we 
love  the  true  song,  and  are  charmed  by  it  as  by  some- 
thing divine,  so  shall  we  hate  the  false  song,  and  ac- 
count it  a  mere  wooden  noise,  a  thing  hollow,  super- 
fluous, altogether  an  insincere  and  offensive  thing. 

I  give  Dante  my  highest  praise  when  I  say  of  his 
Divine  Comedy,  that  it  is,  in  all  senses,  genuinely  a 
Song.  In  the  very  sound  of  it  there  is  a  canto  fer mo; 
it  proceeds  as  by  a  chant.  The  language,  his  simple 
terza  rima,  doubtless  helped  him  in  this.  One 
reads  along  naturally  with  a  sort  of  lilt.  But  1  add, 
that  it  could  not  be  otherwise;  for  the  essence  and 
material  of  the  work  are  themselves  rhythmic.  Its 
depth,  and  rapt  passion  and  sincerity,  makes  it  musi- 
cal;— go  deep  enough,  there  is  a  music  every  where. 
A  true  inward  symmetry,  what  one  calls  an  architec- 
tural harmony,  reigns  in  it,  proportionates  it  all: 
architectural;  which  also  partakes  of  the  character  of 
music.  The  three  kingdoms,  Inferno,  Purgatorio, 
Paradiso,  look  out  on  one  another  like  compartments 
of  a  great  edifice;  a  great  supernatural  world-cathe- 
dral, piled  up  there,  stern,  solemn,  awful;  Dante's 
World  of  Souls !  It  is,  at  bottom,  the  sincerest  of  all 
Poems;  sincerity,  here  too,  we  find  to  be  the  mea- 
sure of  worth.  It  came  deep  out  of  the  author's 
heart  of  hearts;  and  it  goes  deep,  and  through  long 
generations,  into  ours.."  The  people  of  Verona,  when 
they  saw  him  on  the  streets,  used  to  say,  "  Eccovi 
V  uom  cK1  e  stato  alV  Inferno,  See,  there  is  the  man 
that  was  in  Hell!"  Ah,  yes,  he  had  been  in  Hell; 
— in  Hell  enough,  in  long  severe  sorrow  and  strug- 


>ECT.  III.  THE  HERO  A3   POET.  115 


gle;  as  the  like  of  him  is  pretty  sure  to  have  been. 
Commedias  that  come  out  divine,  are  not  accom- 
plished otherwise.  Thought,  true  labour  of  any  kind, 
highest  virtue  itself,  is  it  not  the  daughter  of  pain? 
Born  as  out  of  the  black  whirlwind; — true  effort,  in 
fact,  as  of  a  captive  struggling  to  free  himself:  that  is 
Thought.  In  all  ways  we  are  "  to  become  perfect 
through  suffering." — But,  as  1  say,  no  work  known 
to  me  is  so  elaborated  as  this  of  Dante's.  It  has  all 
been  as  if  molten,  in  the  hottest  furnace  of  his  soul. 
It  had  made  him  "lean"  for  many  years.  Not  the 
general  whole  only;  every  compartment  of  it  is 
worked  out,  with  intense  earnestness,  into  truth,  into 
clear  visuality.  Each  answers  to  the  other;  each  fits 
in  its  place,  like  a  marble  stone  accurately  hewn  and 
polished.  It  is  the  soul  of  Dante,  and  in  this  the  soul 
of  the  middle  ages,  rendered  for  ever  rhythmically 
visible  there.  No.light  task;  a  right  intense  one:  but 
a  task  which  is  doye. 

Perhaps  one  would  say,  intensity,  with  the  much 
that  depends  on  it,  is  the  prevailing  character  of 
Dante's  genius.  Dante  does  not  come  before  us  as  a 
large  catholic  mind;  rather  as  a  narrow,  and  even 
sectarian  mind:  it  is  partly  the  fruit  of  his  age  and 
position,  but  partly  too  of  his  own  nature.  His  great- 
ness has,  in  all  senses,  concentred  itself  into  fiery 
emphasis  and  depth.  \   He  is  world-great  not  because 

he  is  world-wide,  but  because  he  is  world-deep 

Through  all  objects  he  pierces  as  it  were  down  into 
the  heart  of  Being.  I  know  nothing  so  intense  as 
Dante.  Consider,  for  example,  to  begin  with  the 
outermost  development  of  his  intensity,  consider 
how  he  paints.  He  has  a  great  power  of  vision ;  seizes 
the  very  type  of  a  thing;  presents  that  and  nothing 


116  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

more.  You  remember  that  first  view  he  gets  of  the 
Hall  of  Dite:  red  pinnacle,  red-hot  cone  of  iron  glow- 
ing through  the  dim  immensity  of  gloom; — so  vivid, 
so  distinct,  visible  at  once  and  for  ever!  It  is  an 
emblem  of  the  whole  genius  of  Dante.  There  is  a 
brevity,  an  abrupt  precision  in  him;  Tacitus  is  not 
briefer,  more  condensed;  and  then  in  Dante  it  seems 
a  natural  condensation,  spontaneous  to  the  man.  One 
smiting  word:  and  then  there  is  silence,  nothing  more 
said.  His  silence  is  more  eloquent  than  words.  It  is 
strange  with  what  a  sharp  decisive  grace  he  snatches 
the  true  likeness  of  a  matter;  cuts  into  the  matter  as 
with  a  pen  of  fire.  Plutus,  the  blustering  giant,  col- 
lapses at  Virgil's  rebuke;  it  is  "as  the  sails  sink,  the 
mast  being  suddenly  broken."  Or  that  poor  Sordello, 
with  the  cotto  aspetto,  "face  baked"  parched  brown 
and  lean;  and  the  "fiery  snow"  that  falls  on  them 
there,  a  "  fiery  snow  without  wind,"  slow,  deliberate, 
never-ending!  Or  the  lids  of  those  Tombs;  square 
sarcophaguses,  in  that  silent,  dim-burning  Hall,  each 
with  its  Soul  in  torment;  the  lids  laid  open  there: 
they  are  to  be  shut  at  the  day  of  Judgment,  through 
Eternity.  And  how  Farinati  rises;  and  how  Caval- 
cante  falls — at  hearing  of  his  Son,  and  the  past  tense 
"fue!"  The  very  movements  in  Dante  have  some- 
thing brief;  swift,  decisive,  almost  military.  It  is 
of  the  inmost  essence  of  his  genius  this  sort  of  paint- 
ing. The  fiery,  swift  Italian  nature  of  the  man,  so 
silent,  passionate,  with  its  quick  abrupt  movements, 
its  silent  "pale  rages,"  speaks  itself  in  these  things. 
For  though  this  of  painting  is  one  of  the  outermost 
developments  of  a  man,  it  comes  like  all  else  from 
the  essential  faculty  of  him;  it  is  physiognomical  of 
the  whole  man.     Find  a  man  whose  wrords  paint  you 


LECT.  III. 


THE  HERO  AS  POET.  117 


a  likeness,  you  have  found  a  man  worth  something; f/ 
mark  his  manner  of  doing  it,  as  very  characteristic  of 
him.  'In  the  first  place  he  could  not  have  discerned 
the  object  at  all,  or  seen  the  vital  type  of  it,  unless 
he  had,  what  we  may  call,  sympathized  with  it,-— had 
sympathy  in  him  to  bestow  on  objects.  He  must 
have  been  sincere,  about  it  too;  sincere  and  sympa- 
thetic: a  man  without  worth  cannot  give  you  the 
likeness  of  any  object;  he  dwells  in  vague  outward-  ' 
ness,  fallacy,  and  trivial  hearsay,  about  all  objects. 
And  indeed  may  we  not  say  that  intellect,  altogether 
expresses  itself  in  this  power  of  discerning  what  an 
object  is?  Whatsoever  of  faculty  a  man's  mind  may 
have  will  come  out  here.  Is  it  even  of  business,  a 
matter  to  be  done?  The  gifted  man  is  he  who  sees 
the  essential  point,  and  leaves  all  the  rest  aside  as 
surplusage:  it  is  his  faculty  too,  the  man  of  business's 
faculty,  that  he  discern  the  true  likeness,  not  the  false 
superficial  one,  of  the  thing  he  has  got  to  work  in. 
And  how  much  of  morality  is  in  the  kind  of  insight 
we  get  of  any  thing;  "the  eye  seeing  in  all  things 
what  it  brought  with  it  the  faculty  of  seeing !"  To 
the  mean  eye  all  things  are  trivial,  as  certainly  as  to 
the  jaundiced  they  are  yellow.  Raphael,  the  Paint- 
ers tell  us,  is  the  best  of  all  Portrait-painters  withal. 
No  most  gifted  eye  can  exhaust  the  significance  of 
any  object.  In  the  commonest  human  face  there  lies 
more  than  Raphael  will  take  away  with  him. 

Dante's  painting  is  not  graphic  only,  brief,  true, 
and  of  a  vividness  as  of  fire  in  dark  night;  taken  on 
the  wider  scale,  it  is  every  way  noble,  and  the  out- 
come of  a  great  soul.  Francesca  and  her  Lover,  what 
qualities  in  that!  A  thing  woven  as  out  of  rainbows, 
on  a  ground  of  eternal  black.  A  small  flute  voice  of 
10* 


US  THE    HERO   AS    POET. 

infinite  wail  speaks  there,  into  our  very  heart  of 
hearts..*  A  touch  of  womanhood  in  it  too;  she  speaks 
of  "  quest a  forma  f* — so  innocent;  and  how/even  in 
the  Pit  of  wo,  it  is  a  solace  that  he  will  "  never  part 
from  her."  Saddest  tragedy  in  these  altiguai.  And 
the  racking  winds,  in  that  aer  bruno,  whirl  them  away 
again  for  ever! — Strange  to  think:  Dante  was  the 
friend  of  this  poor  Francesca's  father;  Francesca  her- 
self may  have  sat  upon  the  Poet's  knee,  as  a  bright 
innocent  little  child.  Infinite  pity,  yet  also  infinite 
rigour  of  law:  it  is  so  Nature  is  made;  it  is  so  Dante 
discerned  that  she  was  made.  What  a  paltry  notion 
is  that  of  his  Divine  Comedy's  being  a  poor  splenetic 
impotent  terrestrial  libel;  putting  those  into  Hell 
whom  he  could  not  be  avenged  upon  on  earth!  I 
suppose  if  ever  pity,  tender  as  a  mother's,  was  in  the 
heart  of  any  man,  it  was  in  Dante's.  But  a  man  who 
does  not  know  rigour  cannot  pity  either.  His  very 
pity  will  be  cowardly,  egotistic, — sentimentality,  or 
little  better.  I  know  not  in  the  world  an  affection 
equal  to  that  of  Dante.  It  is  a  tenderness,  a  trem- 
bling, longing,  pitying  love:  like  the  wail  of  iEolian 
harps,  soft,  soft;  like  a  child's  young  heart; — and 
then  that  stern,  sore-saddened  heart!  These  longings 
of  his  towards  his  Beatrice;  their  meeting  together 
in  the  Paradiso;  his  gazing  in  her  pure  transfigured 
eyes,  her  that  had  been  purified  by  death  so  long, 
separated  from  him  so  far:  ah,  one  likens  it  to  the 
song  of  angels;  it  is  among  the  purest  utterances  of 
affection,  perhaps  the  very  purest,  that  ever  came 
out  of  a  human  soul.' 

For  the  intense  Dante  is  intense  in  all  things:  he 
has  got  into  the  essence  of  all.  His  intellectual  in- 
sight, as  painter,  on  occasion  too  as  reasoner,  is  but 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  119 

the  result  of  all  other  sorts  of  intensity.  Morally 
great,  above  all,  we  must  call  him;  it  is  the  begin- 
ning of  all.  His  scorn,  his  grief  are  as  transcendent 
as  his  love; — as  indeed  what  are  they  but  the  inverse 
or  converse  of  his  love  ?  "  A  Bio  spiacenti,  edcC  ne- 
?nici  sui,  Hateful  to  God  and  to  the  enemies  of  God :" 
lofty  scorn,  unappeasable,  silent  reprobation  and 
aversion  :  "  Non  ragionem  di  lor,  We  will  not  speak 
of  them,  look  only  and  pass."  Or  think  of  this: 
"  They  have  not  the  hope  to  die,  Non  han  speranza  di 
?norte."  One  day,  it  had  risen  sternly  benign  on  the 
scathed  heart  of  Dante,  that  he,  wretched,  never- 
resting,  worn  as  he  was,  would  full  surely  die;  "that 
Destiny  itself  could  not  doom  him  not  to  die."  Such 
words  are  in  this  man.  For  rigour,  earnestness  and 
depth,  he  is  not  to  be  paralleled  in  the  modern  world ; 
to  seek  his  parallel  we  must  go  into  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  and  live  with  the  antique  Prophets  there. 

I  do  not  agree  with  much  modern  criticism,  in 
greatly  preferring  the  inferno  to  the  two  other  parts 
of  the  Divine  Commedia.  Such  preference  belongs, 
I  imagine,  to  our  general  Byronism  of  taste,  and  is 
like  to  be  a  transient  feeling.  The  Purgatorio  and 
Paradiso,  especially  the  former,  one  would  almost 
say,  is  even  more  excellent  than  it.  It  is  a  noble 
thing  that  Purgatorio,  "Mountain  of  Purification;" 
an  emblem  of  the  noblest  conception  of  that  age.  If 
Sin  is  so  fatal,  and  Hell  is  and  must  be  so  rigorous, 
awful,  yet  in  Repentance  too  is  man  purified;  Re- 
pentance is  the  grand  Christian  act.  It  is  beautiful 
how  Dante  works  it  out.  The  tremolar  dell,  onde, 
that  "  trembling  "  of  the  ocean-waves,  under  the  first 
pure  gleam  of  morning,  dawning  afar  on  the  wan- 
dering Two,  is  as  the  type  of  an  altered  mood.    Hope 


120  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

has  now  dawned;  never-dying  Hope,  if  in  company 
still  with  heavy  sorrow.  The  obscure  sojourn  of 
demons  and  reprobate  is  under-foot;  a  soft  breath- 
ing of  penitence  mounts  higher  and  higher,  to  the 
Throne  of  Mercy  itself.  "Pray  for  me,"  the  deni- 
zens of  that  Mount  of  Pain  all  say  to  him.  "Tell 
my  Giovanna  to  pray  for  me,"  my  daughter  Giovan- 
na;  "I  think  her  mother  loves  me  no  more!"  They 
toil  painfully  up  by  that  winding  steep,  "bent  down 
like  corbels"  of  a  building,  some  of  them, — crushed 
together  so  "for  the  sin  of  pride;"  yet  nevertheless 
in  years,  in  ages  and  aeons,  they  shall  have  reached 
the  top,  Heaven's  gate,  and  by  Mercy  been  admit- 
ted in.  The  joy  too  of  all,  when  one  has  prevailed; 
the  whole  Mountain  shakes  with  joy,  and  a  psalm 
of  praise  rises,  when  one  soul  has  perfected  repent- 
ance and  got  its  sin  and  misery  left  behind!  1  call 
all  this  a  noble  imbodiment  of  a  true  noble  thought. 
But  indeed  the  Three  compartments  mutually  sup- 
port one  another,  are  indispensable  to  one  another. 
The  Paradlso,  a  kind  of  inarticulate  music  to  me,  is 
the  redeeming  side  of  the  Inferno;  the  Inferno  with- 
out it  were  untrue.  All  three  make  up  the  true  Un- 
seen World  as  figured  in  the  Christianity  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages;  a  thing  for  ever  memorable,  for  ever  true 
in  the  essence  of  it,  to  all  men.  It  was  perhaps  de- 
lineated in  no  human  soul  with  such  depth  of  vera- 
city as  in  this  of  Dante's;  a  man  sent  to  sing  it, 
to  keep  it  long  memorable.  J  Very  notable  with 
what  brief  simplicity  he  passes  out  of  the  every-day 
reality,  into  the  Invisible  one;  and  in  the  second  or 
third  stanza,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  World  of  Spirits; 
and  dwell  there,  as  among  things  palpable,  indubi- 
table!    I'o   Dante  they  were  so;    the  real  world,  as 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  121 

it  is  called,  and  its  fact,  was  but  the  threshold  to  an 
infinitely  higher  Fact  of  a  World.  At  bottom,  the 
one  was  as^??*e/er-natural  as  the  other.  Has  not  each 
man  a  soul?  ;  He  will  not  only  be  a  spirit,  but  is  one: 
To  the  earnest  Dante  it  is  all  one  visible  Fact;  he 
believes  it,  sees  it;  is  the  Poet  of  it  in  virtue  of  that. 
rSincjerity,  I  say  again,  is  the  saving  merit,  now  as 
always/ 

Dante's  Hell,  Purgatory,  Paradise,  are  a  symbol 
withal,  an  emblematic  representation  of  his  Belief 
about  this  Universe: — some  Critic  in  a  future  age, 
like  those  Scandinavian  ones  the  other  day,  who  has 
ceased  altogether  to  think  as  Dante  did,  may  find 
this,  too,  all  an  "  Allegory,"  perhaps  an  idle  Allegory ! 
It  is  a  sublime  imbodiment,  our  sublimest,  of  the 
soul  of  Christianity.  It  expresses,  as  in  huge  world- 
wide architectural  emblems,  how  the  Christian  Dante 
felt  Good  and  Evil  to  be  the  two  popular  elements 
of  this  Creation,  on  which  it  all  turns;  that  these 
two  differ  not  by  preferability  of  one  to  the  other, 
but  by  incompatibility  absolute  and  infinite;  that  the 
one  is  excellent  and  high  as  light  and  Heaven,  the 
other  hideous,  black  as  Gehenna  and  the  Pit  of  Hell! 
Everlasting  Justice,  yet  with  Penitence,  with  ever- 
lasting Pity, — all  Christianism,  as  Dante  and  the 
Middle  Ages  had  it,  is  emblemed  here.  Emblemed; 
and  yet,  as  1  urged  the  other  day,  with  what  entire 
truth  of  purpose:  how  unconscious  of  any  emblem- 
ing! Hell,  Purgatory,  Paradise:  these  things  were 
not  fashioned  as  emblems;  was  there  in  our  Modern 
European  Mind,  any  thought  at  all  of  their  being 
emblems?^  Were  they  not  indubitable  awful  facts; 
the  whole  heart  of  man  taking  them  for  practically 
true,  all  Nature  every  where  confirming  them?  •  So  is 


122  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

it  always  in  these  things.  Men  do  not  believe  an 
Allegory.  The  future  Critic,  whatever  his  new 
thought  may  be,  who  considers  this  of  Dante  to  have 
been  all  got  up  as  an  Allegory,  will  commit  one  sore 
mistake! — Paganism  we  recognised  as  a  veracious 
expression  of  the  earnest  awe-struck  feeling  of  man 
towards  the  Universe:  veracious,  true  once,  and  still 
not  without  worth  for  us.  But  mark  here  the  differ- 
ence of  Paganism  and  Christianism;  one  great  differ- 
ence. Paganism  emblemed  chiefly  the  Operations 
of  Nature:  the  destinies,  efforts,  combinations,  vicis- 
situdes of  things  and  men  in  the  world;  Christianism 
emblemed  the  Laws  of  Human  Duty,  the  Moral  Law 
of  Man.  One  was  for  the  sensuous  nature;  a  rude 
helpless  utterance  of  the  first  Thought  of  men, — the 
chief  recognised  virtue,  Courage,  Superiority  to  Fear. 
The  other  was  not  for  the  sensuous  nature,  but  for 
the  moral.  What  a  progress  is  here,  if  in  that  one 
respect  only! — ■ 

And  so  in  this  Dante,  as  we  said,  had  ten  silent 
centuries,  in  a  very  strange  way,  found  a  voice. — 
The  Divine  Commedia  is  of  Dante's  writing;  yet  in 
truth  it  belongs  to  ten  Christian  centuries,  only  the 
finishing  of  it  is  Dante's.  So  always.  The  crafts- 
man there,  the  smith  with  that  metal  of  his,  with 
these  tools,  with  these  cunning  methods, — how  little 
of  all  he  does  is  properly  his  work!  All  past  in- 
ventive men  work  there  with  him; — as  indeed  with 
all  of  us,  in  all  things.  Dante  is  the  spokesman  of 
the  Middle  Ages;  the  thought  they  lived  by  stands 
here,  in  everlasting  music.  These  sublime  ideas  of 
his,  terrible  and  beautiful,  are  the  fruit  of  the  Chris- 
tian Meditation  of  all  the  good  men  who  had  gone 


LECT.  III.      THE  HERO  AS  POET.  123 

before  him.  Precious  they;  but  also  is  not  he  pre- 
cious? Much,  had  not  he  spoken,  would  have  been 
dumb;  not  dead,  yet  living  voiceless. 

On  the  whole,  is  it  not  an  utterance,  this  mystic 
Song,  at  once  of  one  of  the  greatest  human 
souls,  and  of  the  highest  thing  that  Europe  had 
hitherto  realized  for  itself?  Christianism  as  Dante 
sings  it,  is  another  than  Paganism  in  the  rude  Norse 
mind;  another  than  "  Bastard  Christianism  "  half-ar- 
ticulately  spoken  in  the  Arab  Desert,  seven  hundred 
years  before! — The  noblest  idea  made  real  hitherto 
among  men,  is  sung,  and  emblemed  forth  abiding- 
ly, by  one  of  the  noblest  men.  In  the  one  sense 
and  in  the  other,  are  we  not  right  glad  to  possess  it? 
As  I  calculate,  it  may  last  yet  for  long  thousands  of 
years.  For  the  thing  that  is  uttered  from  the  in- 
most parts  of  a  man's  soul,  differs  altogether  from 
what  is  uttered  by  the  outer  part#  The  outer  is  of 
the  day,  under  the  empire  of  mode ;  the  outer  passes 
away,  in  swift  endless  changes;  the  inmost  is  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day  and  for  ever,)/  True  souls, 
in  all  generations  of  the  world,  who  look  on  this 
Dante,  will  find  a  brotherhood  in  him;  the  deep  sin- 
cerity of  his  thoughts,  his  woes  and  hopes,  will 
speak  likewise  to  their  sincerity;  they  will  feel  that 
this  Dante  too  is  a  brother.  Napoleon  in  Saint  He- 
lena is  charmed  with  the  genial  veracity  of  old  Ho- 
mer. The  oldest  Hebrew  Prophet,  under  a  vesture 
the  most  diverse  from  ours,  does  yet,  because  he 
speaks  from  the  heart  of  man,  speak  to  all  men's 
hearts.  It  is  the  one  sole  secret  of  continuing  long 
memorable.  Dante,  for  the  depth  of  sincerity,  is 
like  an  antique  Prophet  too;  his  words,  like  theirs, 
come  from  his  very  heart.     One  need  not  wonder  if 


124  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

it  were  predicted  that  his  Poem  might  be  the  most 
enduring  thing  our  Europe  has  yet  made;  for  no- 
thing so  endures  as  a  truly  spoken  word.  All  ca- 
thedrals, pontificalities,  brass  and  stone,  and  outer 
arrangement,  never  so  lasting,  are  brief  in  compari- 
son to  an  unfathomable  heart-song  like  this:  one 
feels  as  if  it  might  survive,  still  of  importance  to  men, 
when  these  had  all  sunk  into  new  irrecognisable 
combinations,  and  had  ceased  individually  to  be. 
Europe  has  made  much;  great  cities,  great  empires, 
encyclopaedias,  creeds,  bodies  of  opinion  and  prac- 
tice: but  it  has  made  little  of  the  class  of  Dante's 
Thought.  Homer  yet  is,  veritably  present  face  to 
face  with  every  open  soul  of  us;  and  Greece,  where 
is  it?  Desolate  for  thousands  of  years;  away,  va- 
nished; a  bewildered  heap  of  stones  and  rubbish,  the 
life  and  existence  of  it  all  gone.  Like  a  dream:  like 
the  dust  of  King  Agamemnon !  Greece  was;  Greece, 
jxcept  in  the  words  it  spoke,  is  not. 

The  uses  of  this  Dante?  We  will  not  say  much 
about  his  "uses."  A  human  soul  who  has  once  got 
into  that  primal  element  of  Song,  and  sung  forth  fitly 
somewhat  therefrom,  has  worked  in  the  depths  of  our 
existence;  feeding  through  long  times  the  life-roo/s 
of  all  excellent  human  things  whatsoever, — in  a  way 
that  "  utilities  "  will  not  succeed  well  in  calculating! 
We  will  not  estimate  the  Sun  by  the  quantity  of  gas- 
light it  saves  us;  "Dante  shall  be  invaluable,  or  of  no 
value.  One  remark  I  may  make;  the  contrast  in 
this  respect  between  the  Hero-Poet  and  the  Hero- 
Prophet.  In  a  hundred  years,  Mahomet,  as  we  saw, 
had  his  Arabians  at  Grenada  and  at  Delhi:  Dante's 
Italians  seem  to  be  yet  very  much  where  they  were. 
Shall  we  say,  then,  Dante's  effect  on  the  world  was 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  125 

small  in  comparison?  Not  so:  his  arena  is  far  more 
restricted;  but  also  it  is  far  nobler,  clearer; — per- 
haps not  less,  but  more  important.  Mahomet  speaks 
to  great  masses  of  men,  in  the  coarse  dialect  adapted 
to  such;  a  dialect  filled  with  inconsistencies,  crudi- 
ties, follies:  on  the  great  masses  alone  can  he  act, 
and  there  with  good  and  with  evil  strangely  blended. 
Dante  speaks  to  the  noble,  the  pure  and  great,  in 
all  times  and  places.  Neither  does  he  grow  obsolete, 
as  the  other  does.  Dante  burns  as  a  pure  star,  fixed 
there  in  the  firmament,  at  which  the  great  and  the 
high  of  all  ages  kindle  themselves:  he  is  the  pos- 
session of  all  the  chosen  of  the  world  for  uncounted 
time.  Dante,  one  calculates,  may  long  survive  Ma- 
homet. In  this  way  the  balance  may  be  made 
straight  again. 

But,  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  by  what  is  called  their 
effect  on  the  world,  by  what  we  can  judge  of  their 
effect  there,  that  a  man  and  his  work  are  measured. 
Effect?  Influence?  Utility?  Let  a  man  do  his 
work;  the  fruit  of  it  is  the  care  of  Another  than  he. 
It  will  grow  its  own  fruit;  and  whether  imbodied  in 
Calif  Thrones  and  Arabian  Conquests,  so  that  it 
"fills  all  Morning  and  Evening  Newspapers,"  and 
all  Histories,  which  are  a  kind  of  distilled  Newspa- 
pers; or  not  imbodied  so  at  all; — what  matters  that? 
That  is  not  the  real  fruit  of  it!  The  Arabian  Calif, 
in  so  far  only  as  he  did  something,  was  something.  If 
the  great  Cause  of  Man,  and  Man's  work  in  God's 
Earth,  got  no  furtherance  from  the  Arabian  Calif, 
then  no  matter  how  many  cimeters  he  drew,  how 
many  gold  piastres  pocketed,  and  what  uproar  and 
blaring  he  made  in  this  world, — he  was  but  a  loud- 
sounding  inanity  and  futility;  at  bottom,  he  teas  not 
11 


126  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

at  all.  Let  us  honour  the  great  empire  of  Silence 
once  more!  Ah  yes,  the  boundless  treasury  which 
we  do  not  jingle  in  our  pockets,  or  count  up  and  pre- 
sent before  men.  It  is  perhaps,  of  all  things,  the 
usefulest  for  each  of  us  to  do,  in  these  loud  times. — 

As  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our 
world  to  imbody  musically  the  Religion  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  the  Religion  of  our  Modern  Europe,  its  In- 
ner Life;  so  Shakspeare,  we  may  say,  imbodies  for 
us  the  Outer  Life  of  our  Europe  as  developed  then, 
its  chivalries,  courtesies,  humours,  ambitions,  what 
practical  way  of  thinking,  acting,  looking  at  the 
world,  men  then  had.  As  in  Homer  we  may  still 
construe  Old  Greece;  so  in  Shakspeare  and  Dante, 
after  thousands  of  years,  what  our  Modern  Europe 
was,  in  Faith  and  in  Practice,  will  still  be  legible. 
Dante  has  given  us  the  Faith  or  soul;  Shakspeare, 
in  a  not  less  noble  way,  has  given  us  the  Practice  or 
body.  This  latter  also  we  were  to  have:  a  man  was 
sent  for  it,  the  man  Shakspeare.  Just  when  that 
chivalry-way  of  life  had  reached  its  last  finish,  and 
was  on  the  point  of  breaking  down  into  slow  or  swift 
dissolution,  as  we  now  see  it  every  where,  this  other 
sovereign  Poet,  with  his  seeing  eye,  with  his  peren- 
nial singing-voice,  was  sent  to  take  note  of  it,  to 
give  long-enduring  record  of  it.'  Two  fit  men:  Dante, 
deep,  fierce  as  the  central  fire  of  the  world;  Shak- 
speare, wide,  placid,  far-seeing,  as  the  Sun,  the  up- 
per light  of  the  world.  Italy  produced  the  one 
world-voice;  we  English  had  the  honour  of  pro- 
ducing the  other. 

Curious  enough  how,  as  it  were  by  mere  accident, 
this   man  came  tp   us.     I   think   always,   so    great, 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  127 

quiet,  complete  and  self-sufficing  is  this  Shakspeare, 
had  the  Warwickshire  Squire  not  prosecuted  him 
for  deer-stealing,  we  had  perhaps  never  heard  of 
him  as  a  poet!  The  woods  and  skies,  the  rustic 
Life  of  Man  in  Stratford  there,  had  been  enough  for 
this  man  !  But  indeed  that  strange  outbudding  of 
our  whole  English  Existence,  which  we  call  the 
Elizabethan  Era,  did  it  not  too  come  as  of  its  own 
accord?  The  "Tree  Igdrasil"  buds  and  withers  by 
its  own  laws, — too  deep  for  our  scanning.  Yet  it 
does  bud  and  wither,  and  every  bough  and  leaf 
of  it  is  there,  by  fixed  eternal  laws;  not  a  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy  but  comes  at  the'hour  fit  for  him;  Curious,  I 
say,  and  not  sufficiently  considered)  how  every 
thing  does  co-operate  with  all*  not  a  leaf  rotting  on 
the  highway  but  is  indissoluble  portion  of  solar  and 
stellar  systems;  no  thought,  wwd  or  act  of  man  but 
has  sprung  withal  out  of  all  men,  and  works  sooner 
or  later,  recognisably  or  irrecognisably,  on  all  men! 
It  is  all  a  Tree:  circulation  of  sap  and  influences, 
mutual  communication  of  every  minutest  leaf  with 
the  lowest  talon  of  a  root,  with  every  other  greatest 
and  minutest  portion  of  the  whole.  The  Tree 
Igdrasil,  that  has  its  roots  down  in  the  Kingdoms  of 
Ilela  and  Death,  and  whose  boughs  overspread  the 
highest  Heaven ! — 

In  some  sense  it  may  be  said  that  this  glorious 
Elizabethan  Era  with  its  Shakspeare,  as  the  outcome 
and  flowrerage  of  all  which  had  preceded  it,  is  itself 
attributable  to  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  Christian  Faith,  which  was  the  theme  of 
Dante's  Song,  had  produced  this  Practical  Life 
which  Shakspeare  was  to  sing.1  For  Religion  then, 
as  it  now  and  always  is,  was  the  soul  of  Practice; 


12S  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

the  primary  vital  fact  in  men's  life.  And  remark 
here,  as  rather  curious,  Middle  Age  Catholicism 
was  abolished,  so  far  as  Acts  of  Parliament  could 
abolish  it  before  Shakspeare,  the  noblest  product  of 
it,  made  his  appearance.  He  did  make  his  appear- 
ance nevertheless.  Nature  at  her  own  time,  with 
Catholicism  or  what  else  might  be  necessary,  sent 
him  forth;  taking  small  thought  of  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment. King  Henrys,  Queen  Elizabeths  go  their 
way;  and  Nature  too  goes  hers.  Acts  of  Parliament, 
on  the  whole,  are  small,  notwithstanding  the  noise 
they  make.  What  Act  of  Parliament,  debate  at  St. 
Stephen's,  on  the  hustings  or  elsewhere,  was  it  that 
brought  this  Shakspeare  into  being?  No  dining 
at  Freemasons'  Tavern,  opening  subscription-lists, 
selling  of  shares,  and  infinite  other  jangling  and 
true  or  false  endeavouring!  This  Elizabethan  Era, 
and  all  its  nobleness  and  blessedness,  came  with- 
out proclamation,  preparation  of  ours.  Priceless 
Shakspeare  was  the  free  gift  of  Nature;  given  alto- 
gether silently; — received  altogether  silently,  as  if 
it  had  been  a  thing  of  little  account.  And  yet,  very 
literally,  it  is  a  priceless  thing.  One  should  look  at 
that  side  of  matters  too. 

Of  this  Shakspeare  of  ours,  perhaps  the  opinion 
one  sometimes  hears  a  little  idolatrously  expressed 
is,  in  fact,  the  right  one;  I  think  the  best  judgment 
not  of  this  country  only,  but  of  Europe  at  large,  is 
slowly  pointing  to  the  conclusion,  That  Shakspeare 
is  the  chief  of  all  Poets  hitherto;  the  greatest  intel- 
lect who,  in  our  recorded  world,  has  left  record  of 
himself  in  the  way  of  Literature.  On  the  whole,  I 
know  not  such  a  power  of  vision,  faculty  of  thought, 
if  we  take  all  the  characters  of  it,  in  any  other  man. 


T,ECT.  III.  THE  HERO  AS  POET.  129 

Such  a  calmness  of  depth,  placid  joyous  strength ; 
all  things  imagined  in  that  great  soul  of  his  so  true 
and   clear,   as  in  a   tranquil    unfathomable   sea!     It 
has   been   said,  that  in   the  constructing  of  Shak* 
speare's  Dramas  there  is,  apart  from  all  other  "fa- 
culties "  as  they  are  called,  an  understanding  mani- 
fested, equal  to  that  in  Bacon's  Novum   Organum. 
That  is  true;  and  it  is  not  a  truth  that  strikes  every 
one.     It  would  become  more  apparent  if  we  tried,  any 
of  us  for  himself,  how,  out  of  Shakspeare's  dramatic 
materials,  we  could  fashion  such  a  result!     The  built 
house  seems  all  so  fit,  every  way  as  it  should  be,  as  if 
it  came  there  by  its  own  law  and  the  nature  of  things: 
we  forget  the  rude  disorderly  quarry  it  was  shaped 
from.     The  very  perfection  of  the  house,  as  if  Na- 
ture herself  had  made  it,  hides  the  builder's  merit. 
Perfect,  more  perfect  than  any  other  man,  we  may 
call  Shakspeare  in  this:  he  discerns,  knows  as  by 
instinct,  what  condition  he  works  under,  what  his 
materials  are,  what  his  own  force  and  its  relation  to 
them  is.     It  is  not  a  transitory  glance  of  insight  that 
will  suffice;  it  is  deliberate  illumination  of  the  whole 
matter;  it  is  a  calmly  seeing  eye;  a  great  intellect, 
in  short.     How  a  man,  of  some  wide  thing  that  he 
has  witnessed,  will  construct  a  narrative,  what  kind 
of  picture  and  delineation  he  will  give  of  it, — is  the 
best  measure  you  could  get  of  what  intellect  is  in  the 
man.     Winch  circumstance  is  vital  and  shall  stand 
prominent;  which  unessential,  fit  to  be  suppressed: 
where  is  the  true  beginning,  the  true  sequence  and 
ending?     To  find  out  this,  you  task  the  whole  force 
of  insight  that  is  in  the  man.     He  must  understand 
the  thing;  according  to  the  depth  of  his  understand- 
ing, will  the  fitness  of  his  answer  be.     You  will  try 
XI* 


130  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

him  so.  Does  like  join  himself  to  like;  the  spirit  of 
method  stir  in  that  confusion,  so  that  its  embroilment 
becomes  order?  Can  the  man  say,  Fiat  lax,  and 
out  of  chaos  make  a  world?  Precisely  as  there  is 
light  in  himself,  will  he  accomplish  this. 

Or  indeed  we  may  say  again,  it  is  in  what  I  called 
Portrait-painting,  delineating  of  men,  and  things, 
especially  of  men,  that  Shakspeare  is  great.  All  the 
greatness  of  the  man  comes  out  decisively  here.  It 
is  unexampled,  I  think,  that  calm  creative  perspica- 
city of  Shakspeare.  The  thing  he  looks  at  reveals 
not  this  or  that  face  of  it,  but  its  inmost  heart  and 
generic  secret:  it  dissolves  itself  as  in  light  before  him, 
so  that  he  discerns  the  perfect  structure  of  it.  Crea- 
tive, we  said:  poetic  creation,  what  is  this  too  but 
seeing  the  thing  sufficiently?  The  word  that  will 
describe  the  thing  follows,  of  itself,  from  such  clear 
intense  sight  of  the  thing.  And  is  not  Shakspeare's 
morality,  his  valour,  candour,  tolerance,  truthfulness; 
his  whole  victorious  strength  and  greatness,  which 
can  triumph  over  such  obstructions,  visible  there  too? 
Great  as  the  world  !  No  twisted,  poor  convex-con- 
cave mirror,  reflecting  all  objects  with  its  own  con- 
vexities and  concavities;  a  perfectly  level  mirror; — 
that  is  to  say  withal,  if  we  will  understand  Lt,  a  man 
justly  related  to  all  things  and  men,  a  good  man.  It 
is  truly  a  lordly  spectacle  how  this  great  soul  takes 
in  all  kinds  of  men  and  objects,  a  Falstaff,  an  Othello, 
a  Juliet,  a  Coriolanus;  sets  them  all  forth  to  us  in  their 
round  completeness;  loving,  just,  the  equal  brother 
of  all.  Novum  Organam,  and  all  the  intellect  you 
will  find  in  Bacon,  is  of  a  quite  secondary  order; 
earthy,  material,  poor  in  comparison  with  this.  Among 
modern  men  one  finds,  in  strictness,  almost  nothing 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  131 

of  the  same  rank.  Goethe  alone,  since  the  days  of 
Shakspeare,  reminds  me  of  it.  Of  him  too  you  say 
that  he  saiv  the  object;  you  may  say  what  he  him- 
self says  of  Shakspeare.  "His  characters  are  like 
watches  with  dial-plates  of  transparent  crystal;  they 
show  you  the  hour  like  others,  and  the  inward  me- 
chanism also  is  all  visible." 

The  seeing  eye!  It  is  this  that  discloses  the  inner 
harmony  of  things;  what  Nature  meant,  what  musi- 
cal idea  Nature  has  wrapped  up  in  these  often  rough 
imbodiments.  Something  she  did  mean.  To  the 
seeing  eye  that  something  were  discernible.  Are  they 
base  miserable  things?  You  can  laugh  over  them, 
you  can  weep  over  them,  you  can  in  some  way  or 
other  genially  relate  yourself  to  them; — you  can, 
at  lowest,  hold  your  peace  about  them,  turn  away 
your  own  and  others'  face  from  them,  till  the  hour 
come  for  practically  exterminating  and  extinguishing 
them!  At  bottom,  it  is  the  Poet's  first  gift,  as 
it  is  all  men's,  that  he  have  intellect  enough.  He 
will  be  a  Poet  if  he  have;  a  Poet  in  word;  or  failing 
that,  perhaps  still  better,  a  Poet  in  act.  Whether 
he  write  at  all;  and  if  so,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse, 
will  depend  on  accidents:  who  knows  on  what  ex- 
tremely trivial  accidents, — perhaps  on  his  having 
had  a  singing  master,  on  his  being  taught  to  sing  in 
his  boyhood!  But  the  faculty  which  enables  him  to 
discern  the  inner  heart  of  things,  and  the  harmony 
that  dwells  there,  (for  whatsoever  exists  has  a  har- 
mony in  the  heart  of  it,  or  it  would  not  hold  together 
and  exist,)  is  not  the  result  of  habits  or  accidents 
but  the  gift  of  Nature  herself;  the  primary  outfit  for 
a  Heroic  man  in  what  sort  soever.  To  the  Poet,  as 
to  every  other,  we  say  first  of  all,  See.     If  you   can- 


132  THE   HERO  AS  POET. 

not  do  that,  it  is  of  no  use  to  keep  stringing  rhymes 
together,  jingling  sensibilities  against  each  other,  and 
name  yourself  a  Poet;  there  is  no  hope  for  you.  If 
you  can,  there  is,  in  prose  or  verse,  in  action  or  specu- 
lation, all  manner  of  hope.  The  crabbed  old  School- 
master used  to  ask,  when  they  brought  him  a  new 
pupil,  "But  are  ye  sure  he's  not  a  dunce?"  Why, 
really  one  might  ask  the  same  thing,  in  regard  to 
every  man  proposed  for  whatsoever  function;  and 
consider  it  as  the  one  inquiry  needful:  Are  ye  sure 
he's  not  a  dunce?  There  is,  in  this  world,  no  other 
entirely  fatal  person. 

For,  in  fact,  I  say  the  degree  of  vision  that  dwells 
in  a  man  is  a  correct  measure  of  the  man.  If  called 
to  define  Shakspeare's  faculty,  1  should  say  supe- 
riority of  Intellect,  and  think  I  had  included  all  un- 
der that.  What  indeed  are  faculties?  We  talk  of 
faculties  as  if  they  were  distinct,  things  separable: 
as  if  a  man  had  intellect,  imagination,  fancy,  &c, 
as  he  has  hands,  feet,  and  arms.  That  is  a  capital 
error.  Then  again,  we  hear  of  a  man's  "intellectual 
nature,"  and  of  his  "moral  nature,"  as  if  these  again 
were  divisible,  and  existed  apart.  Necessities  of 
language  do  indeed  require  us  so  to  speak;  we  must 
speak,  I  am  aware,  in  that  way,  if  we  are  to  speak 
at  all.  But  words  ought  not  to  harden  into  things 
for  us.  It  seems  to  me,  our  apprehension  of  this 
matter  is,  for  most  part,  radically  falsified  thereby. 
We  ought  to  know  withal,  and  to  keep  for  ever  in 
mind,  that  these  divisions  are  at  bottom  but  names; 
that  man's  spiritual  nature,  the  vital  Force  which 
dwells  in  him,  is  essentially  one  and  indivisible;  that 
what  we  call  imagination,  fancy,  understanding,  and 
so  forth,  are  but  different  figures  of  the  same  Power 


LECT.  III.    THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET.  133 

of  Insight,  all  indissolubly  connected  with  each 
other,  physiognomically  related;  that  if  we  knew 
one  of  them,  we  might  know  all  of  them.  Morality 
itself,  what  we  call  the  moral  quality  of  a  man,  what 
is  this  but  another  side  of  the  one  vital  Force  where- 
by he  is  and  wOrks?  All  that  a  man  does  is  phy- 
siognomical of  him.  You  may  see  how  a  man  would 
fight,  by  the  way  in  which  he  sings;  his  courage,  or 
want  of  courage,  is  visible  in  the  word  he  utters,  in 
the  opinion  he  has  formed,  no  less  than  in  the  stroke 
he  strikes.  He  is  one;  and  preaches  the  same  Self 
abroad  in  all  these  ways. 

Without  hands  a  man  might  have  feet,  and  could 
still  walk:  but,  consider  it,  without  morality,  intel- 
lect were  impossible  for  him,  he  could  not  know 
any  thing  at  all!  To  know  a  thing,  what  we  can 
call  knowing,  a  man  must  first  love  the  thing,  sym- 
pathize wTith  it:  that  is,  be  virtuously  related  to  it. 
If  he  have  not  the  justice  to  put  down  his  own  sel- 
fishness at  every  turn,  the  courage  to  stand  by  the 
dangerous-true  at  every  turn,  how  shall  he  know? 
His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded  in  his  knowT- 
ledge.  Nature  with  her  truth  remains  to  the  bad,  the 
selfish,  and  the  pusillanimous,  for  ever  a  sealed  book: 
what  such  can  know  of  Nature  is  mean,  superficial, 
small;  for  the  uses  of  the  day  merely. — But  does  not 
the  very  Fox  know  something  of  Nature?  Exactly 
so:  it  knows  where  the  geese  lodge!  The  human 
Reynard,  very  frequent  every  where  in  the  world, 
what  more  does  he  know  but  this  and  the  like  of  this? 
Nay,  it  should  be  considered  too,  that  if  the  Fox  had 
not  a  certain  vulpine  morality,  he  could  not  even 
know  where  the  geese  were,  or  get  at  the  geese!  If 
he  spent  his  time  in  splenetic  atrabiliar  reflections  on 


134  the  hero  as  poet. 

his  own  misery,  his  ill  usage  by  Nature,  Fortune,  and 
other  Foxes,  and  so  forth;  and  had  not  courage, 
prompitude,  practicality,  and  other  suitable  vulpine 
gifts  and  graces,  he  would  catch  no  geese.  We  may 
say  of  the  Fox  too,  that  his  morality  and  insight  are 
of  the  same  dimensions;  different  faces  of  the  same 
internal  unity  of  vulpine  life  !  These  things  are 
worth  stating,  for  the  contrary  of  them  acts  with  mani- 
fold very  baleful  perversion,  in  this  time:  what  limi- 
tations, modifications  they  require,  your  own  candour 
will  supply. 

If  I  say,  therefore,  that  Shakspeare  is  the  greatest 
of  Intellects,  I  have  said  all  about  him.  But  there 
is  more  in  Shakspeare's  intellect  than  we  have  yet 
seen.  It  is  what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect; 
there  is  more  virtue  in  it  than  he  himself  is  aware  of. 
Novalis  beautifully  remarks  of  him,  that  those  Dramas 
of  his  are  Products  of  Nature  too,  deep  as  Nature 
herself.  I  find  a  great  truth  in  this  saying.  Shak- 
speare's Art  is  not  Artifice;  the  noblest  worth  of  it  is 
not  there  by  plan  or  pre-contrivance.  It  grows  up 
from  the  deeps  of  Nature,  through  this  noble  sincere 
soul,  who  is  a  voice  of  Nature.  The  latest  genera- 
tions of  men  will  find  new  meanings  in  Shakspeare, 
new  elucidations  of  their  own  human  being;  "  new 
harmonies  with  the  infinite  structure  of  the  Universe; 
concurrences  with  later  ideas,  affinities  with  the 
higher  powers  and  senses  of  man."  This  well  de- 
serves meditating.  It  is  Nature's  highest  reward  to 
a  true  simple  great  soul,  that  he  get  thus  to  be  a  part 
of  herself.  Such  a  man's  works,  whatsoever  he  with 
utmost  conscious  exertion  and  forethought  shall  ac- 
complish, grow  up  withal  unconsciously,  from  the 
unknown  deeps  in  him; — as  the  oak-tree  grows  from 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET-  135 

the  Earth's  bosom,  as  the  mountains  and  waters 
shape  themselves;  with  a  symmetry  grounded  on 
Nature's  own  laws,  conformable  to  all  Truth  whatso- 
ever. How  much  in  Shakspeare  lies  hid;  his  sor- 
rows, his  silent  struggles  known  to  himself;  much 
that  was  not  known  at  all,  not  speakable  at  all:  like 
roots,  like  sap  and  forces  working  under  ground  ! 
Speech  is  great;  but  Silence  is  greater. 

Withal  the  joyful  tranquillity  of  this  man  is  no- 
table. I  will  not  blame  Dante  for  his  misery:  it  is 
as  battle  without  victory;  but  true  battle, — the  first, 
indispensable  thing.  Yet  1  call  Shakspeare  greater 
than  Dante,  in  that  he  fought  truly,  and  did  conquer. 
Doubt  it  not,  he  had  his  own  sorrows  :  those  Sonnets 
of  his  will  even  testify  expressly  in  what  deep  waters 
he  had  waded,  and  swum  struggling  for  his  life; — as 
what  man  like  him  ever  had  not  to  do?  It  seems  to 
me  a  heedless  notion,  our  common  one,  that  he  sat 
like  a  bird  on  the  bough;  and  sang  forth,  free  and 
off-hand,  never  knowing  the  troubles  of  other  men. 
Not  so:  with  no  man  is  it  so.  How  could  a  man  travel 
forward  from  rustic  deer-poaching  to  such  tragedy- 
writing,  and  not  fall  in  with  sorrows  by  the  way? 
Or,  still  better,  how  could  a  man  delineate  a  Hamlet, 
a  Coriolanus,  a  Macbeth,  so  many  suffering  heroic 
hearts,  if  his  own  heroic  heart  had  never  suffered  ? — 
And  now,  in  contrast  with  all  this,  observe  his  mirth- 
fulness,  his  genuine  overflowing  love  of  laughter ! 
You  would  say,  in  no  point  does  he  exaggerate  but 
only  in  laughter.  Fiery  objurgations,  words  that 
pierce  and  burn,  are  to  be  found  in  Shakspeare:  yet 
he  is  always  in  measure  here;  never  what  Johnson 
would  remark  as  a  specially  "good  hater."  But  his 
laughter  seems  to  pour  from  him  in  floods;  he  heaps 


136  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

all  manner  of  ridiculous  nicknames  on  the  butt, 
tumbles  and  tosses  him  in  all  sorts  of  horse-play; 
you  would  say  roars  and  laughs.  And  then,  if  not 
always  the  finest,  it  is  always  a  genial  laughter.  Not 
a  mere  weakness,  at  misery  or  poverty:  never.  No 
man  who  can  laugh,  what  we  call  laughing,  will 
laugh  at  these  things.  It  is  some  poor  character  only 
desiring  to  laugh,  and  have  the  credit  of  wit,  that 
does  so.  Laughter  means  sympathy;  good  laughter 
is  not  "the  crackling  of  thorns  under  the  pot."  Even 
at  stupidity  and  pretension  this  Shakspeare  does  not 
laugh  otherwise  than  genially.  Dogberry  and  Verges 
tickle  our  very  hearts;  and  we  dismiss  them  covered 
with  explosions  of  laughter:  but  we  like  the  poor 
fellows  only  the  better  for  our  laughing;  and  hope 
that  they  will  get  on  well  there,  and  continue  Presi- 
dents of  the  City-watch. — Such  laughter,  like  sun- 
shine on  the  deep  sea,  is  very  beautiful  to  me. 

We  have  no  room  to  speak  of  Shakspeare's  indi- 
vidual works;  though  perhaps  there  is  much  still 
waiting  to  be  said  on  that  head.  Had  we,  for  in- 
stance, all  his  Plays  reviewed,  as  Hamlet  in  Wilhelm 
Meister  is!  A  thing  which  might,  one  day,  be  done. 
August  Wilhelm  Schlegel  has  a  remark  on  his  His- 
torical Plays,  Henry  Fifth  and  the  others,  which  is 
worth  remembering.  He  calls  them  a  kind  of  Na- 
tional Epic.  Marlborough,  you  recollect,  said,  he 
knew  no  English  History  but  what  he  had  learned 
from  Shakspeare.  There  are  really,  if  we  look  to  it, 
few  as  memorable  Histories.  The  great  salient  points 
are  admirably  seized;  all  rounds  itself  off,  into  a  kind 
of  rhythmic  coherence:  it  is,  as  Schlegel  says  epic; 
— as  indeed  all  delineation  by  a  great  thinker  will 
be.    There  are  right  beautiful  things  in  those  Pieces, 


LECT.  III.        THE  HERO  AS  POET.  137 

which,  indeed,  together  form  one  beautiful  thing. 
That  battle  of  Agincourt  strikes  me  as  one  of  the 
most  perfect  things,  in  its  sort,  we  any  where  have 
of  Shakspeare's.  The  description  of  the  two  hosts; 
the  worn  out,  jaded  English;  the  dread  hour,  big 
with  destiny,  when  the  battle  shall  begin;  and  then 
that  deathless  valour:  "Ye  good  yeomen,  whose 
limbs  were  made  in  England!"  There  is  a  noble 
Patriotism  in  it, — far  other  than  the  "indifference " 
you  sometimes  hear  ascribed  to  Shakspeare.  A  true 
English  heart  breathes,  calm  and  strong,  through  the 
whole  business;  not  boisterous,  protrusive;  all  the 
better  for  that.  There  is  a  sound  in  it  like  the  ring 
of  steel.  This  man,  too,  had  a  right  stroke  in  him, 
had  it  come  to  that! 

But  I  will  say,  of  Shakspeare's  works  generally, 
that  we  have  no  full  impress  of  him  there;  even  as 
full  as  we  have  of  many  men.  His  works  are  so  many 
windows,  through  which  we  see  a  glimpse  of  the 
world  that  was  in  him.  All  his  works  seem,  compa- 
ratively speaking,  cursory,  imperfect,  written  under 
cramping  circumstances;  giving  only  here  and  there 
a  note  of  the  full  utterance  of  the  man.  Passages 
there  are  that  come  upon  you  like  splendour  out  of 
Heaven;  bursts  of  radiance,  illuminating  the  very 
heart  of  the  thing:  you  say,  "That  is  true,  spoken 
once  and  for  ever;  wheresoever  and  whensoever 
there  is  an  open  human  soul,  that  will  be  recognised 
as  true!"  Such  bursts,  however,  make  us  feel  that 
the  surrounding  matter  is  not  radiant;  that  it  is,  in 
part,  temporary,  conventional.  Alas,  Shakspeare 
had  to  write  for  the  Globe  Playhouse;  his  great  soul 
had  to  crush  itself,  as  it  could,  into  that  and  no  other 
mould.  It  was  with  him,  then,  as  it  is  with  us  all. 
12 


13S  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

No  man  works  save  under  conditions.  The  sculptor 
cannot  set  his  own  free  Thought  before  us;  but  his 
Thought  as  he  could  translate  it  into  the  stone  that 
was  given,  with  the  tools  that  were  given.  Disjecta 
membra  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  Poet,  or  of  any  man. 

Whoever  looks  intelligently  at  this  Shakspeare 
may  recognise  that  he  too  was  a  Prophet,  in  his  way; 
of  an  insight  analogous  to  the  Prophetic,  though  he 
took  it  up  in  another  strain.  Nature  seemed  to  this 
man  also  divine;  2mspeakable,\deep  as  Tophet,  high 
as  Heaven  :\"  We  are  such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made 
of!"  That  scroll  in  Westminster  Abbey,  which  few 
read  with  understanding,  is  of  the  depth  of  any  Seer. 
But  the  man  sang:  did  not  preach,  except  musically. 
We  call  Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of  Middle-Age 
Catholicism.  May  we  not  call  Shakspeare  the  still 
more  melodious  Priest  of  a  true  Catholicism,  the 
"  Universal  Church  "  of  the  Future  and  of  all  times? 
No  narrow  superstition,  harsh  asceticism,  intolerance, 
fanatical  fierceness  or  perversion:  a  Revelation  so  far 
as  it  goes,  that  such  a  thousandfold  hidden  beauty  and 
divineness  dwells  in  all  Nature;  which  let  all  men 
worship  as  they  can!  We  may  say  without  offence, 
that  there  rises  a  kind  of  universal  psalm  out  of  this 
Shakspeare  too;  not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among 
the  still  more  sacred  Psalms.  Not  in  disharmony 
with  these,  if  we  understood  them,  but  in  unison! — 
I  cannot  call  this  Shakspeare  a  "  Skeptic,"  as  some 
do:  his  indifference  to  the  creeds  and  theological 
quarrels  of  his  time  misleading  them.  No:  neither 
unpatriotic,  though  he  says  little  about  his  Patriotism; 
nor  skeptic,  though  he  says  little  about  his  Faith. 
Such  "  indifference "  was  the  fruit  of  his  greatness 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  139 

withal:  his  whole  heart  was  in  his  own  grand  sphere 
of  worship;  (we  may  call  it  such;)  these  other  con- 
troversies, vitally  important  to  other  men,  were  not 
vital  to  him. 

But  call  it  worship,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  it  not 
a  right  glorious  thing,  and  set  of  things,  this  that 
Shakspeare  has  brought  us?  For  myself,  I  feel  that 
there  is  actually  a  kind  of  sacredness  in  the  fact  of 
such  a  man  being  sent  into  this  Earth.  Is  he  not  an 
eye  to  us  all;  a  blessed  heaven-sent  Bringer  of  Light? 
— And,  at  bottom,  was  it  not  perhaps  far  better  that 
this  Shakspeare,  every  way  an  unconscious  man,  was 
conscious  of  no  Heavenly  message?  He  did  not  feel, 
like  Mahomet,  because  he  saw  into  those  internal 
Splendours,  that  he  specially  was  the  "  Prophet  of 
God."  I  ask,  was  he  not  greater  than  Mahomet  in 
that?  Greater;  and  also,  if  we  compute  strictly,  as 
we  did  in  Dante's  case,  more  successful.  It  was  in- 
trinsically an  error  that  notion  of  Mahomet's,  of  his 
supreme  Prophethood;  and  has  come  down  to  us  in- 
extricably involved  in  error  to  this  day;  dragging 
along  with  it  such  a  coil  of  fables,  impurities,  intole- 
rances, as  makes  it  a  questionable  step  for  me  here 
and  now  to  say,  as  I  have  done,  that  Mahomet  was 
a  true  Speaker  at  all,  and  not  rather  an  ambitious 
charlatan,  perversity  and  simulacrum,  no  Speaker, 
but  a  Babbler!  Even  in  Arabia,  as  I  compute,  Ma- 
homet will  have  exhausted  himself  and  become  ob- 
solete, while  this  Shakspeare,  this  Dante  may  be 
still  young; — while  this  Shakspeare  may  still  pre- 
tend to  be  a  Priest  of  Mankind,  of  Arabia,  as  of  other 
places,  for  unlimited  periods  to  come!  Compared 
with  any  speaker  or  singer  one  knows,  even  with 
JEscbylus  or  Homer,  why  should  he  not,  for  veracity 


140  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

and  universality,  last  like  them?  He  is  sincere  as 
they;  reaches  deep  down  like  them,  to  the  univer- 
sal and  perennial.  But  as  for  Mahomet,  I  think  it 
had  been  better  for  him  not  to  be  so  conscious!  Alas, 
poor  Mahomet;  all  that  he  was  conscious  of  was  a 
mere  error;  a  futility  and  triviality, — as  indeed  such 
ever  is.  The  truly  great  in  him  too  was  the  uncon- 
scious: that  he  was  a  wild  Arab  lion  of  the  desert, 
and  did  speak  out  with  that  great  thunder-voice  of  his, 
not  by  words  which  he  thought  to  be  great,  but  by 
actions,  by  feelings,  by  a  history  which  were  great! 
His  Koran  has  become  a  stupid  piece  of  prolix  ab- 
surdity; we  do  not  believe,  like  him,  that  God  wrote 
that!  The  Great  Man  here  too,  as  always,  is  a  Force 
of  Nature;  whatsoever  is  truly  great  in  him,  springs 
up  from  the  inarticulate  deeps. 

Well:  this  is  our  poor  Warwickshire  peasant,  who 
rose  to  be  Manager  of  a  Playhouse,  so  that  he  could 
live  without  begging;  whom  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton cast  some  kind  glances  on;  whom  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy,  many  thanks  to  him,  was  for  sending  to  the 
Treadmill!  We  did  not  account  him  a  god  like  Odin, 
while  he  dwelt  with  us; — on  which  point  there  were 
much  to  be  said.  But  I  will  say  rather,  or  repeat, 
in  spite  of  the  sad  state  Hero-worship  now  lies  in, 
consider  what  this  Shakspeare  has  actually  become 
among  us.  Which  Englishman  we  ever  made,  in 
this  land  of  ours,  which  million  of  Englishmen, 
would  we  not  give  up  rather  than  the  Stratford  Pea- 
sant? There  is  no  regiment  of  highest  Dignitaries 
that  we  would  sell  him  for.  He  is  the  grandest  thing 
we  have  yet  done.  For  our  honour  among  foreign 
nations,  as  an  ornament  to   our  English  Household, 


LECT.  III.       THE  HERO  AS  POET.  141 

what  item  is  there  that  we  would  not  surrender  rather 
than  him?  Consider  now,  if  they  asked  us,  Will 
you  give  up  your  Indian  Empire  or  your  Shakspeare, 
you  English;  never  have  had  any  Indian  Empire, 
or  never  have  had  any  Shakspeare?  Really  it  were 
a  grave  question.  Official  persons  would  answer 
doubtless  in  official  language;  but  we,  for  our  part 
too,  should  not  we  be  forced  to  answer:  Indian  Em- 
pire, no  Indian  Empire;  we  cannot  do  without  Shak- 
speare! Indian  Empire  will  go,  at  any  rate,  some 
day^but  this  Shakspeare  does  not  go,  he  lasts  for 
ever  with  us;  we  cannot  give  up  our  Shakspeare  ! 

Nay,  apart  from  spiritualities;  and  considering 
him  merely  as  a  real,  marketable,  tangible,  useful 
possession.  England,  before  long,  this  Island  of 
purs,  will  hold  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  English: 
in  America,  in  New  Holland,  east  and  west  to  the 
very  Antipodes,  there  will  be  a  Saxondom  covering 
great  spaces  of  the  Globe.  And  now,  what  is  it  that 
can  keep  all  these  together  into  virtually  one  Nation 
so  that  they  do  not  fall  out  and  fight,  but  live  at  peace, 
in  brotherlike  intercourse,  helping  one  another? 
This  is  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  practical  pro- 
blem, the  thing  all  manner  of  sovereignties  and  go- 
vernments are  here  to  accomplish:  what  is  it  that 
will  accomplish  this?  Acts  of  Parliament,  adminis- 
trative prime-ministers  cannot.  America  is  parted 
from  us,  so  far  as  Parliament  could  part  it.  Call  it  not 
fantastic,  for  there  is  much  reality  in  it:  Here,  I  sa}-, 
is  an  English  King,  whom  no  time  or  chance,  Par- 
liament or  combination  of  Parliaments,  can  dethrone! 
This  King  Shakspeare,  does  not  he  shine,  in  crown- 
ed sovereignty,  over  us  all,  as  the  noblest,  gentlest, 
yet  strongest  of  rallying-signs;  z/zdestructible;  real? 
12* 


142  THE  HERO  AS  POET. 

ly  more  valuable  in  that  point  of  view,  than  any 
other  means  or  appliance  whatsoever?  We  can  fancy 
him  as  radiant  aloft  over  all  the  Nations  of  English- 
men a  thousand  years  hence.  From  Paramatta,  from 
New  York,  wheresoever,  under  what  sort  of  Parish- 
Constable  soever,  English  men  and  women  are,  they 
will  say  to  one  another:  "Yes,  this  Shakspeare  is 
ours;  we  produced  him,  we  speak  and  think  by  him; 
we  are  of  one  blood  and  kind  with  him."  The  most 
common-sense  politician  too,  if  he  pleases,  may  think 
of  that. 

Yes,  truly,  it  is  a  great  thing  for  a  Nation  that  it 
get  an  articulate  voice;  that  it  produce  a  man  who 
will  speak  forth  melodiously  what  the  heart  of  it 
means !  Italy,  for  example,  poor  Italy,  lies  dis- 
membered, scattered  asunder,  not  appearing  in 
any  protocol  or  treaty  as  a  unity  at  all;  yet  the  no- 
ble Italy  is  actually  one.  Italy  produced  its  Dante; 
Italy  can  speak!  The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  he 
is  strong  with  so  many  bayonets,  Cossacks  and  can- 
nons; and  does  a  great  feat  in  keeping  such  a  tract 
of  Earth  politically  together;  but  he  cannot  yet 
speak.  Something  great  in  him,  but  it  is  a  dumb 
greatness.  He  has  had  no  voice  of  genius,  to  be 
heard  of  all  men  and  times.  He  must  learn  to  speak. 
He  is  a  great  dumb  monster  hitherto.  His  cannons 
and  Cossacks  will  all  have  rusted  into  nonentity, 
while  that  Dante's  voice  is  still  audible.  The  Nation 
that  has  a  Dante  is  bound  together  as  no  dumb  Rus- 
sia can  be. — We  must  here  end  what  we  had  to  say 
of  the  Hero- Poet. 


LECTURE  IV. 

[Friday,   15thMay,  1840.] 

THE    HERO    AS    PRIEST: LUTHER;    REFORMATION; 

KNOX;  PURITANISM. 

Our  present  discourse  is  to  be  of  the  Great  Man 
as  Priest.  We  have  repeatedly  endeavoured  to  ex- 
plain that  all  sorts  of  Heroes  are  intrinsically  of  the 
same  material;  that  given  a  great  soul,  open  to  the 
Divine  Significance  of  Life,  then  there  is  given  a 
man  fit  to  speak  of  this,  to  sing  of  this,  to  fight  and 
work  for  this,  in  a  great,  victorious,  enduring  man- 
ner; there  is  given  a  Hero, — the  outward  shape  of 
whom  will  depend  on  the  time  and  the  environment 
he  finds  himself  in.5  The  Priest  too,  as  I  understand 
it,  is  a  kind  of  Prophet;  in  him  too  there  is  required 
to  be  a  light  of  inspiration,  as  we  must  name  it.  He 
presides  over  the  worship  of  the  people ;  is  the  Uni- 
ter  of  them  with  the  Unseen  Holy.  He  is  the  spi- 
ritual Captain  of  the  people;  as  the  Prophet  is  their 
spiritual  King  with  many  captains;  he  guides  them 
heavenward,  by  wise  guidance  through  this  Earth 
and  its  work.  The  ideal  of  him  is,  that  he  too,  be 
what  we  can  call  a  voice  from  the  unseen  Heaven; 
interpreting,  even  as  the  Prophet  did,  and  in  a  more 
familiar  manner  unfolding  the  same  to  men.  The 
unseen  Heaven, — the  "  open  secret  of  the  Universe/' 
which  so  few  have  an  eye  for!  r  He  is  the  Prophet 
shorn  of  his  more  awful  splendour;  burning  with 
mild  equable  radiance,  as  the  enlightener  of  daily 


141  THE   HERO  AS   PRIEST. 

life.  This,  I  say,  is  the  ideal  of  a  Priest  So  in  old 
times;  so  in  these,  and  in  all  times.  One  knows 
very  well  that,>'in  reducing  ideals  to  practice,  great 
latitude  of  tolerance  is  needful;  very  great!  But  a 
Priest  who  is  not  this  at  all,  who  does  not  any  longer 
aim  or  try  to  be  this,  is  a  character — of  whom  we 
had  rather  not  speak  in  this  place. 

Luther  and  Knox  were  by  express  vocation  Priests, 
and  did  faithfully  perform  that  function  in  its  com- 
mon sense.  Yet  it  will  suit  us  better  here  to  consi- 
der them  chiefly  in  their  historical  character,  rather 
as  Reformers  than  Priests.  There  have  been  other 
Priests  perhaps  equally  notable,  in  calmer  times,  for 
doing  faithfully  the  office  of  a  leader  of  Worship; 
bringing  down,  by  faithful  heroism  in  that  kind,  a 
light  from  Heaven  into  the  daily  life  of  their  people; 
leading  them  forward,  as  under  God's  guidance,  in 
the  way  wherein  they  were  to  go.  But  when  this 
same  ivay  was  a  rough  one,  of  battle,  confusion,  and 
danger,  the  spiritual  Captain  who  led  through  that, 
becomes,  especially  to  us  who  live  under  the  fruit  of 
his  leading,  more  notable  than  any  other.  He  is  the 
warfaring  and  battling  Priest;  who  led  his  people, 
not  to  quiet  labour  as  in  smooth  times,  but  to  faith- 
ful, valorous  conflict,  in  times  all  violent,  dismem- 
bered:  a  more  perilous  service,  a  more  memorable 
one,  be  it  higher  or  not.  These  two  men  we  will 
account  our  best  Priests,  inasmuch  as  they  were  our 
best  Reformers.  Nay,  1  may  ask,  Is  not  every  true 
Reformer,  by  the  nature  of  him,  a  Priest  first  of  all? 
He  appeals  to  Heaven's  invisible  justice  against 
Earth's  visible  force,  knows  that  it,  the  invisible, 
is  strong  and  alone  strong.  He  is  a  believer  in  the 
d.iyjne  .truth  of  things,  a  seer,  seeing  through  the  shows 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  145 

of  things:  a  worshipper,  in  one  way  or  the  other,"  of 
the  divine  truth  of  things:  a  Priest,  that  is.  If  he 
be  not  first  a  Priest,  he  will  never  be  good  for  much 
as  a  Reformer. 

Thus  then,  as  we  have  seen  Great  Men,  in  various 
situations,  building  up  Religions,  heroic  Forms  of 
human  Existence  in  this  world,  Theories  of  Life 
worthy  to  be  sung  by  a  Dante,  Practices  of  Life  by  a 
Shakspeare, — we  are  now  to  see  the  reverse  process; 
which  also  is  necessary,  which  also  may  be  carried 
on  in  the  Heroic  manner.  Curious  how  this  should 
be  necessary:  yet  necessary  it  is.  The  mild  shining 
of  the  Poet's  light  has  to  give  place  to  the  fierce 
lightning  of  the  Reformer:  unfortunately  the  Re- 
former too  is  a  personage  that  cannot  fail  in  History! 
The  Poet  indeed,  with  his  mildness,  what  is  he  but 
the  product  and  ultimate  adjustment  of  Reform,  or 
Prophecy,  with  its  fierceness?  No  wild  Saint  Domi- 
nies and  Thebaid  Eremites,  there  had  been  no  me- 
lodious Dante;  rough  Practical  Endeavour,  Scandi- 
navian and  other,  from  Odin  to  Walter  Raleigh,  from 
Ulfina  to  Cranmer,  enabled  Shakspeare  to  speak. 
Nay, the  finished  Poet,  I  remark  sometimes,  is  a  symp- 
tom that  his  epoch  itself  has  reached  perfection  and 
is  finished;  that  before  long  there  will  be  a  new 
epoch,  new  Reformers  needed. 

Doubtless  it  were  finer,  could  we  go  along  always 
in  the  way  of  music:  be  tamed  and  taught  by  our 
Poets,  as  the  rude  creatures  were  by  their  Orpheus 
of  old.  Or  failing  this  rhythmic  musical  way,  how 
good  were  it  could  we  get  so  much  as  into  the  equa- 
ble way;  I  mean,  if  peaceable  Priests,  reforming  from 
day  to  day,  would  always  suffice  us  !  But  it  is  not 
so;  even  this  latter  has  not  yet  been  realized.    Alas, 


146  THE  HERO  AS  PRIES?, 

the  battling  Reformer  too,  is,  from  time  to  time,  a 
needful  and  inevitable  phenomenon.  Obstructions 
are  never  wanting:  the  very  things  that  were  once 
indispensable  furtherances  become  obstructions;  and 
need  to  be  shaken  off,  and  left  behind  us, — a  busi- 
ness often  of  enormous  difficulty.  It  is  notable 
enough,  surely,  how  a  Theorem  or  Spiritual  Repre- 
sentation, so  we  may  call  it,  which  once  took  in  the 
whole  Universe,  and  was  completely  satisfactory  in 
all  parts  of  it  to  the  highly  discursive  acute  intellect 
of  Dante,  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  world, — had  in 
the  course  of  another  century  become  dubitable  to 
common  intellects;  become  deniable;  and  is  now, 
to  every  one  of  us,  flatly  incredible,  obsolete  as  Odin's 
Theorem!  To  Dante,  human  Existence,  and  God's 
ways  with  men,  were  all  well  represented  by  those 
Malebolges  Purgatorios;  to  Luther  not  well.  How 
was  this?  Why  could  not  Dante's  Catholicism  con- 
tinue; but  Luther's  Protestantism  must  needs  fol- 
low?    Alas,  nothing  will  continue. 

I  do  not  make  much  of  "  Progress  of  the  Species," 
as  handled  in  these  times  of  ours;  nor  do  I  think 
you  would  care  to  hear  much  about  it.  The  talk  on 
that  subject  is  too  often  of  the  most  extravagant, 
confused  sort.  Yet  I  may  say,  the  fact  itself  seems 
certain  enough;  nay,  we  can  trace  out  the  inevitable 
necessity  of  it  in  the  nature  of  things.  ;  Every  man, 
as  I  have  stated  somewhere,  is  not  only  a  learner  but 
a  doer:  he  learns  with  the  mind  given  him  what  has 
been;  but  with  the  same  mind  he  discovers  farther, 
he  invents  and  desires  somewhat  of  his  own.  Abso- 
lutely without  originality  there  is  no  man.  No  man 
whatever  believes,  or  can  believe,  exactly  what  his 
grandfather    believed;    he    enlarges    somewhat,    by 


LECT.   IV.  THE   HERO  AS  PPaEST.  147 

fresh  discovery,  his  view  of  the  Universe,  and  con- 
sequently his  Theorem  of  the  Universe, — which  is 
an  infinite  Universe,  and  can  never  be  embraced 
wholly  or  finally  by  any  view  or  Theorem,  in  any 
conceivable  enlargement:  he  enlarges  somewhat,  I 
say;  finds  somewhat  that  was  credible  to  his  grand- 
father incredible  to  him,  false  to  him,  inconsistent 
with  some  new  thing  he  has  discovered  or  observed. 
j;  It  is  the  history  of  every  man;  and  in  the  history 
of  Mankind  we  see  it  summed  up  into  great  histori- 
cal amounts, — revolutions,  new  epochs.  Dante's 
Mountain  of  Purgatory  does  not  stand  "  in  the  ocean 
of  the  other  Hemisphere,"  when  Columbus  has  once 
sailed  thither!  Men  find  no  such  thing  extant  in  the 
other  Hemisphere.  It  is  not  there.  It  must  cease 
to  be  believed  to  be  there.  So  with  all  beliefs  what- 
soever in  this  world, — all  Systems  of  Belief,  and 
Systems  of  Practice  that  spring  from  these. 

If  we  add  now  the  melancholy  fact  that  when  Be- 
lief waxes  uncertain,  Practice  too  becomes  unsound, 
and  errors,  injustices,  and  miseries  every  where  more 
and  more  prevail,  we  shall  see  material  enough  for 
revolution.  At  all  turns,  a  man  who  will  do  faith- 
fully, needs  to  believe  firmly.  If  he  have  to  ask  at 
every  turn  the  world's  suffrage;  if  he  cannot  dispense 
with  the  world's  suffrage,  and  make  his  own  suffrage 
serve,  he  is  a  poor  eye-servant;  the  work  committed 
to  him  will  be  misdone.  Every  such  man  is  a  daily 
contributor  to  the  inevitable  dovvnfal.  Whatsoever 
work  he  does,  dishonestly,  with  an  eye  to  the  out- 
ward look  of  it,  is  a  new  offence,  parent  of  new  mi- 
sery to  somebody  or  other.  Offences  accumulate  till 
they  become  insupportable:  and  are  then  violently 
burst  through,  cleared  off  as  by  explosion.     Dante's 


14S  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

sublime  Catholicism,  incredible  now  in  theory,  and 
defaced  still  worse  by  faithless,  doubting,  and  dis- 
honest practice,  has  to  be  torn  asunder  by  a  Luther; 
Shakspeare's  noble  Feudalism,  as  beautiful  as  it 
once  looked  and  was,  has  to  end  in  a  French  Revo- 
lution. The  accumulation  of  offences  is,  as  we  say, 
too  literally  exploded,  blasted  asunder  volcanically; 
and  there  are  long  troublous  periods,  before  matters 
come  to  a  settlement  again. 

Surely  it  were  mournful  enough  to  look  only  at 
this  face  of  the  matter,  and  find  in  all  human  opi- 
nions and  arrangements  only  the  fact  that  they  were 
uncertain,  temporary,  subject  to  the  law  of  death! 
At  bottom,  it  is  not  so:  all  death,  here  too,  we  find, 
is  but  of  the  body,  not  of  the  essence  or  soul;  all 
destruction,  by  violent  revolution  or  howsoever  it  be, 
is  but  new  creation  on  a  wider  scale.  Odinism  was 
Valour;  Christianism  was  Humility,  a  nobler  kind 
of  Valour.  No  thought  that  ever  dwelt  honestly  as 
true  in  the  heart  of  man  but  ivas  an  honest  insight 
into  God's  truth  on  man's  part,  and  has  an  essential 
truth  in  it  which  endures  through  all  changes,  an 
everlasting  possession  for  us  all.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  a  melancholy  notion  is  that,  which  has 
to  represent  all  men,  in  all  countries  and  times  except 
our  own,  as  having  spent  their  life  in  blind  condem- 
nable  error,  mere  lost  Pagans,  Scandinavians,  Ma- 
hometans, only  that  we  might  have  the  true  ultimate 
knowledge!  All  generations  of  men  were  lost  and 
wrong,  only  that  this  present  little  section  of  a  gene- 
ration might  be  saved  and  right.  They  all  marched 
forward  there,  all  generations  since  the  beginning  of 
the  world,  like  the  Russian  soldiers  into  the  ditch  of 
Schweidnitz  Fort,  only  to  fill  up  the  ditch  with  their 


LECT  IV.  THE  HERO  AS    PRIEST.  149 

dead  bodies,  that  we  might  march  over  and  take  the 
place!  rlt  is  an  incredible  hypothesis., 

Such  incredible  hypotheses  we  have  seen  main- 
tained with  fierce  emphasis;  and  this  or  the  other 
poor  individual  man,  with  his  sect  of  individual  men, 
marching  as  over  the  dead  bodies  of  all  men,  towards 
sure  victory;  but  when  he  too,  with  his  hypothesis 
and  ultimate  infallible  credo,  sank  into  the  ditch,  and 
became  a  dead  bod yjj what  was  to  be  said?-} — Withal, 
it  is  an  important  fact  in  the  nature  of  man,  that  he 
tends  to  reckon  his  own  insight  as  final,  and  goes 
upon  it  as  such.  He  will  always  do  it,  I  suppose,  in 
one  or  the  other  way;  but  it  must  be  in  some  wider, 
wiser  way  than  this.  Are  not  all  true  men  that  live, 
or  that  ever  lived,  soldiers  of  the  same  army;  en- 
listed, under  Heaven's  captaincy,  to  do  battle  against 
the  same  enemy,  the  empire  of  Darkness  and  Wrong? 
Why  should  we  misknow  one  another,  fight  not 
against  the  enemy  but  against  ourselves,  from  mere 
difference  of  uniform?  |j  All  uniforms  shall  be  goodj 
so  they  hold  in  them  true  valiant  men.  All  fashions 
of  arms,  the  Arab  turban  and  swift  ci meter,  Thor's 
strong  hammer  smiting  down  Jdluns,  shall  be  wel- 
come. Luther's  battle-voice,  Dante's  march-melo- 
dy, all  genuine  things  are  with  us,  not  against  us. 
We  a^re  all  under  one  Captain,  soldiers  of  the  same 
host.1 — Let  us  now  look  a  little  at  this  Luther's  fight- 
ing; what  kind  of  battle  it  was,  and  how  he  com- 
ported himself  in  it.  Luther  too  was  of  our  spiritual 
Heroes;  a  Prophet  to  his  country  and  time. 

As  introductory  to  the  whole,  a  remark  about  Ido- 
latry will  perhaps  be  in  place  here.     One  of  Maho- 
met's characteristics,  which   indeed   belongs  to  all 
13 


150  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  ^ 

Prophets,  is  unlimited  implacable  zeal  against  Ido- 
latry. It  is  the  grand  theme  of  Prophets:  Idolatry, 
the  worshipping  of  dead  Idols  as  the  Divinity,  is  a 
thing  they  cannot  away  with,  but  must  denounce 
continually,  and  brand  with  inexpiable  reprobation; 
it  is  the  chief  of  all  the  sins  they  see  done  under 
the  sun.  This  is  worth  noting.'  We  will  not  enter 
here  into  the  theological  question  about  Idolatry. 
Idol  is  Eidolon,  a  thing  seen,  a  symbol.  It  is  not 
God,  but  a  symbol  of  God;  and  perhaps  one  may 
question  whether  any,  the  most  benighted  mortal, 
ever  took  it  for  more  than  a  Symbol.  I  fancy,  he 
did  not  think  that  the  poor  image  his  own  hands  had 
made  was  God;  but  that  God  was  emblemed  by  it, 
that  God  was  in  it  some  way  or  other."  And  now  in 
this  sense,  one  may  ask,  Is  not  all  worship  what- 
soever a  worship  by  Symbols,  by  eidola,  or  things 
seen?  Whether  seen,  rendered  visible  as  an  image 
or  picture  to  the  bodily  eye;  or  visible  only  to  the 
inward  eye,  to  the  imagination,  to  the  intellect:  this 
makes  a  superficial,  but  no  substantial  difference. 
It  is  still  a  Thing  Seen,  significant  of  Godhood;  an 
Idol.  The  most  rigorous  Puritan  has  his  Confession 
of  Faith,  and  intellectual  Representation  of  Divine 
things,  and  worships  thereby;  thereby  is  worship  first 
made  possible  for  him.  All  creeds,  liturgies,  re- 
ligious forms,  conceptions  that  fitly  invest  religious 
feelings,  are  in  this  sense  eidola,  things  seen.  All 
worship  whatsoever  must  proceed  by  Symbols,  by 
Idols: — we  may  say,  all  Idolatry  is  comparative, 
and  the  worst  Idolatry  is  only  more  idolatrous. 

Where  then  lies  the  evil  of  it?  Some  fatal  evil 
must  lie  in  it,  or  earnest  prophetic  men  would  not 
on  all  hands  so  reprobate  it.     Why  is  Idolatry  so 


LECT.  IV.      THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  151 

hateful  to  Prophets?  i  It  seems  to  me  as  if,  in  the 
worship  of  those  poor  wooden  symbols,  the  thing  that 
had  chiefly  provoked  the  Prophet,and  filled  his  inmost 
soul  with  indignation  and  aversion,  was  not  exactly 
what  suggested  itself  to  his  own  thought,  and  came 
out  of  him  in  words  to  others,  as  the  thing:  The 
rudest  heathen  that  worshipped  Canopus,  or  the  Caa- 
bah  Black-stone,  he,  as  we  saw,  was  superior  to  the 
horse  that  worshipped  nothing  at  all!  Nay,  there 
was  a  kind  of  lasting  merit  in  that  poor  act  of  his; 
analogous  to  what  is  still  meritorious  in  Poets:  recog- 
nition of  a  certain  endless  divine  beauty  and  signifi- 
cance in  stars  and  all  natural  objects  whatsoever. 
Why  should  the  Prophet  so  mercilessly  condemn 
him?  The  poorest  mortal  worshipping  his  Fetish, 
while  his  heart  is  full  of  it,  may  be  an  object  of  pity, 
of  contempt  and  avoidance,  if  you  will;  but  cannot 
surely  be  an  object  of  hatred.  /Let  his  heart  be  ho- 
nestly full  of  it,  the  wThole  space  of  his  dark  narrow 
mind  illuminated  thereby;  in  one  word,  let  him  en- 
tirely believe  in  his  Fetish, — it  will  then  be,  I  should 
say,  if  not  well  with  him,  yet  as  well  as  it  can 
readily  be  made  to  be,  and  you  will  leave  him  alone, 
unmolested  there.'; 

But  here  enters  the  fatal  circumstance  of  Idolatry, 
that  in  the  era  of  the  Prophets,  no  man's  mind  is 
any  longer  honestly  filled  with  his  Idol,  or  Symbol. 
Before  the  Prophet  can  arise  who,  seeing  through  it, 
knows  it  to  be  mere  wood,  many  men  must  have 
begun  dimly  to  doubt  that  it  was  little  more.  Con- 
demnable  Idolatry  is  insincere  Idolatry.  Doubt  has 
eaten  out  the  heart  of  itr.'a  human  soul  is  seen  cling- 
ing spasmodically  to  an  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  which 
it  half-feels  now  to  have  become  a  Phantasm.'     This 


152  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

is  one  of  the  balefullest  sights.  Souls  are  no  longer, 
filled  with  their  Fetish;  but  only  pretend  to  be  filled, 
and  would  fain  make  themselves  feel  that  they  are 
filled.  "  You  do  not  believe,"  said  Coleridge;  "you 
only  believe  that  you  believe.''  It  is  the  final  scene 
in  all  kinds  of  Worship  and  Symbolism ;  the  sure 
symptom  that  death  is  now  nigh.  It  is  equivalent 
to  what  we  call  Formulism,  and  Worship  of  Formulas, 
in  these  days  of  ours.  No  more  immoral  act  can  be 
done  by  a  human  creature ;  for  it  is  the  beginning  of 
all  immorality,  or  rather  it  is  the  impossibility  hence- 
forth of  any  morality  whatsoever!  the  innermost  mo- 
ral soul  is  paralyzed  thereby,  cast  into  fatal  magnetic 
sleep!  Men  are  no  longer  sincere  men.  I  do  not 
wonder  that  the  earnest  man  denounces  this,  brands 
it,  prosecutes  it  with  inextinguishable  aversion.  He 
and  it,  all  good  and  it,  are  at  death-feud.  Blame- 
able  Idolatry  is  Cant,  and  even  what  one  may  call 
Sincere-Cant.  Sincere-Cant:  that  is  worth  thinking 
of!  Every  sort  of  Worship  ends  with  this  phasis. — 
I  find  Luther  to  have  been  a  Breaker  of  Idols,  no 
less  than  any  other  Prophet.  The  wooden  gods  of 
the  Koreish,  made  of  timber  and  bees'-wax  were 
not  more  hateful  to  Mahomet  than  Tetzel's  Pardons 
of  Sin,  made  of  sheepskin  and  ink,  were  to  Luther. 
It  is  the  property  of  every  Hero,  in  every  time,  in 
every  place  and  situation,  that  he  come  back  to  re- 
ality; that  he  stand  upon  things,  and  not  shows  of 
things."  According  as  he  loves,  and  venerates,  arti- 
culately or  with  deep  speechless  thought,  the  awful 
realities  of  things,  so  will  the  hollow  shows  of  things, 
however  regular,  decorous,  accredited  by  Koreishes 
or  Conclaves,  be  intolerable  and  detestable  to  him. 
Protestantism  too  is  the  work  of  a  Prophet:  the  pro- 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HERO    AS  PRIEST.  153 

phet-vvork  of  that  sixteenth  century.  The  first  stroke 
of  honest  demolition  to  an  ancient  thing  grown  false 
and  idolatrous;  preparatory  afar  off  to  a  new  thing, 
which  shall  be  true,  and  authentically  divine! — 

At  first  view  it  might  seem  as  if  Protestantism  were 
entirely  destructive  to  this  that  we  call  Hero-worship, 
and  represent  as  the  basis  of  all  possible  good,  reli- 
gious or  social,  for   mankind.     One  often   hears  it 
said  that  Protestantism  introduced  a  new  era,  radi- 
cally different  from  any  the  world  had  ever  seen  be- 
fore: the  era  of  "private  judgment,"  as  they  call  it. 
By  this  revolt  against  the  Pope,  every  man  became 
his  own  Pope;  and  learned,  among  other  things,  that 
he  must  never  trust  any  Pope,  or  spiritual  Hero-cap- 
tain any  morel;/  Whereby,  is  not  spiritual  union,  all 
hierarchy  and   subordination,    among   men,    hence- 
forth an  impossibility?     So  we  hear  it  said. — Now  I 
need  not  deny  that  Protestantism  was  a  revolt  against 
spiritual  sovereignties,  Popes  and  much  else.    Nay,  1 
will  grant  that  English    Puritanism,  revolt  against 
earthly  sovereignties,  was  the  second  act  of  it;  that 
the  enormous  French  Revolution  itself  was  the  third 
act,  whereby  all  sovereignties  earthly  and  spiritual 
were,   as   might  seem,  abolished    or   made   sure   of 
abolition.   Protestantism  is  the  grand  root  from  which 
our  whole  subsequent   European  History  branches 
out.     For  the  spiritual  will  always  body  itself  forth 
in  the  temporal  history  of  men  j  the  spiritual  is  the 
beginning  of  the  temporal:     And  now,  sure  enough, 
the  cry  is  every  where  for  Liberty  and  Equality,  In- 
dependence and  so  forth;  instead  of  Kings,  Ballot- 
boxes  and  Electoral  suffrages:    it  seems  made  out 
that  any  Hero-sovereign,  or  loyal  obedience  of  men 
to  a  man,  in  things  temporal  or  things  spiritual,  has 
13* 


154  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

passed  away  for  ever  from  the  world.  I  should  de- 
spair of  the  world  altogether,  if  so.  One  of  my 
deepest  convictions  is  that  it  is  not  so.  Without 
sovereigns,  true  sovereigns,  temporal  and  spiritual, 
I  see  nothing  possible  but  an  anarchy;  the  hatefullest 
of  things.  But  I  find  Protestantism,  whatever  anar- 
chic democracy  it  have  produced,  to  be  the  begin- 
ning of  new  genuine  sovereignty  and  order.  I  find 
it  to  be  a  revolt  against  false  sovereigns;  the  painful 
but  indispensable  first  preparative  for  true  sovereigns 
getting  place  among  us!  This  is  worth  explaining 
a  little. 

Let  us  remark,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  that 
this  of  "private  judgment"  is  at  bottom,  not  a  new 
thing  in  the  world,  but  only  new  at  that  epoch  of 
the  world.  There  is  nothing  generically  new  or  pe- 
culiar in  the  reformation;  it  was  a  return  to  Truth 
and  Reality  in  opposition  to  Falsehood  and  Sem- 
blance, as  all  kinds  of  Improvement  and  genuine 
Teaching  are  and  have  been.  Liberty  of  private 
judgment,  if  we  will  consider  it,  must  at  all  times 
have  existed  in  the  world.  Dante  had  not  put  out 
his  eyes,  or  tied  shackles  on  himself;  he  was  at  home 
in  that  Catholicism  of  his,  a  free-seeing  soul  in  it — 
if  many  a  poor  Hogstraten,  Tetzel  and  Dr.  Eck  had 
now  become  slaves  in  it.  Liberty  of  judgment?  No 
iron  chain,  or  outward  force  of  any  kind,  could  ever 
compel  the  soul  of  a  man  to  believe  or  to  disbelieve: 
it  is  his  own  indefeasible  light,  that  judgment  of  h's; 
'  he  will  reign  and  believe  there,  by  the  grace  of  God 
alone!  The  sorriest  sophistical  Bellarmine,  preach- 
ing sightless  faith  and  passive  obedience,  must  first, 
by  some  kind  of  conviction,  have  abdicated  his  right 
to  be  convinced.     His  "private  judgment"  indicated 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  155 

that,  as  the  advisablest  step  he  could  take.  The 
right  of  private  judgment  will  subsist,  in  full  force, 
wherever  true  men  subsist.  A  true  man  believes  with 
his  whole  judgment,  with  all  the  illumination  and  dis- 
cernment that  is  in  him,  and  has  always  so  believed. 
A  false  man,  only  struggling  to  "believe  that  he  be- 
lieves," will  naturally  manage  it  in  some  other  way. 
Protestantism  said  to  this  latter,  Wo!  and  to  the  for- 
mer, Well  done!  At  bottom,  it  was  no  new  saying; 
it  was  a  return  to  all  old  sayings  that  ever  had  been 
said.  Be  genuine,  be  sincere;  that  was,  once  more, 
the  meaning  of  it.  Mahomet  believed  with  his  whole 
mind;  Odin,  with  his  whole  mind, — he,  and  all  true 
Followers  of  Odinism.  They,  by  their  private  judg- 
ment, had  "judged  V — so. 

And  now  I  venture  to  assert,  that  the  exercise  of 
private  judgment,  faithfully  gone  about,  does  by  no 
means  necessarily  end  in  selfish  independence,  iso- 
lation, but  rather  ends  necessarily  in  the  opposite  of 
that.  It  is  not  honest  inquiry  that  makes  anarchy; 
but  it  is  error,  insincerity,  half-belief,  and  untruth 
that  makes  it.  A  man  protesting  against  error  is  on 
the  way  towards  uniting  himself  with  all  men  that 
believe  in  truth.  There  is  no  communion  possible 
among  men  who  believe  only  in  hearsays.  The 
heart  of  each  is  lying  dead;  has  no  power  of  sym- 
pathy even  with  things, — or  he  would  believe  them, 
and  not  hearsays.  No  sympathy  even  with  things; 
how  much  less  with  his  fellow-men!  He  cannot 
unite  with  men;  he  is  an  anarchic  man.  ,  Only  in  a 
world  of  sincere  men  is  unity  possible;  and  there,  in 
the  long  run,  it  is  as  good  as  certain. 

For  observe  one  thing,  a  thing  too  often  left  out  of 
view,  or  rather  altogether  lost  sight  of  in  this  contro- 


156  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

versy:  That  it  is  not  necessary  a  man  should  himself 
have  discovered  the  truth  he  is  to  believe  in  never  so 
sincerely.  A  Great  Man,  we  said,  was  always  sin- 
cere, as  the  first  condition  of  him.  But  a  man  need 
not  be  great  in  order  to  be  sincere ;  that  is  not  the 
necessity  of  Nature  and  all  Time,  but  only  of  certain 
corrupt  unfortunate  epochs  of  Time.  A  man  can 
believe,  and  make  his  own,  in  the  most  genuine 
way,  what  he  has  received  from  another; — and  with 
boundless  gratitude  to  that  other!  The  merit  of  ori- 
ginality is  not  novelty;  it  is  sincerity.  The  believing 
man  is  the  original  man;  whatsoever  he  believes  he 
believes  it  for  himself,  not  for  another.  Every  son 
of  Adam  can  become  a  sincere  man,  an  original  man, 
in  this  sense;  no  mortal  is  doomed  to  be  an  insincere 
man.  Whole  ages,  what  we  call  ages  of  Faith,  are 
original, — all  men  in  them,  or  the  most  of  men  in 
them,  sincere.  These  are  the  great  and  fruitful  ages: 
every  worker,  in  all  spheres,  is  a  worker  not  on  sem- 
blance, but  on  substance;  every  work  issues  in  a  re- 
sult: the  general  sum  of  such  work  is  great;  for  all 
of  it,  as  genuine,  tends  towards  one  goal;  all  of  it  is 
additive,  none  of  it  subtractive.  There  is  true  union, 
true  kingship,  loyalty,  all  true  and  blessed  things,  so 
far  as  the  poor  Earth  can  produce  blessedness  for 
men.  Hero-worship!  Ah  me,  that  a  man  be  self- 
subsislent,  original,  true,  or  what  we  call  it,  is  surely 
the  farthest  in  the  world  from  indisposing  him  to 
reverence  and  believe  other  men's  truth !  It  only 
disposes,  necessitates  and  invincibly  compels  him  to 
^believe  other  men's  dead  formulas,  hearsays  and 
untruths.  A  man  embraces  truth  with  his  eyes  open, 
and  because  his  eyes  are  open:  does  he  need  to  shut 
them  before  he  can  love  his  Teacher  of  truth?     He 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  157 

alone  can  love,  with  a  right  gratitude  and  genuine 
loyalty  of  souljjthe  Hero-Teacher  who  has  delivered 
him  out  of  darkness  into  light,  f)  Is  not  such  a  one  a 
true  Hero,  and  Serpent-queller;  worthy  of  all  reve- 
rence! The  black  monster  Falsehood,  our  one 
enemy  in  this  world,  lies  prostrate  by  his  valour;  it 
was  he  that  conquered  the  world  for  us! — See,  ac- 
cordingly, was  not  Luther  himself  reverenced  as  a 
true  Pope,  or  Spiritual  Father,  being  verily  such? 

■/-  Napoleon,  from  amid  boundless  revolt  of  Sansculot- 
tism,  became  a  King.//  Hero-worship  never  dies,  nor 
can  die.  Loyalty  and  Sovereignty  are  everlasting  in 
the  world : — and  there  is  this  in  them,  that  they  are 
grounded  not  on  garnitures  and  semblances,  but  on 
realities  and  sincerities.  Not  by  shutting  your  eyes, 
your  "private  judgment;"  no,  but  by  opening  them, 

.  and  by  having  something  to  see!  Luther's  message 
was  deposition  and  abolition  to  all  false  Popes  and 
Potentates,  but  life  and  strength,  though  afar  off,  to 
new  genuine  ones. 

All  this  of  Liberty  and  Equality,  Electoral  Suf- 
frages, Independence,  and  so  forth,  we  will  take,  there- 
fore, to  be  a  temporary  phenomenon,  by  no  means  a 
final  one.  Though  likely  to  last  a  long  time,  with 
sad  enough  embroilments  for  us  all,  we  must  welcome 
it,  as  the  penalty  of  sins  that  are  past,  the  pledge  of 
inestimable  benefits  that  are  coming.  In  all  ways, 
it  behooved  men  to  quit  simulacra  and  return  to  fact; 
cost  what  it  might,  that  did  behoove  to  be  done.  With 
spurious  Popes,  and  believers  having  no  private  judg- 
ment,— quacks  pretending  to  command  over  dupes, 
— what  can  you  do?  Misery  and  mischief  only. 
You  cannot  make  an  association  out  of  insincere  men^- 
you  cannot  build  an  edifice  except  by  plummet  and 


158  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

level, — at  n°-A/-angles  to  one  another  !  In  all  this 
wild  revolutionary  work,  from  Protestantism  down- 
wards, I  see  the  blessedest  result  preparing  itself :  not 
abolition  of  Hero-worship,  but  rather  what  I  would 
call  a  whole  World  of  Heroes.  If  Hero  mean  sincere 
man,  why  may  not  every  one  of  us  be  a  Hero  ?  A 
world  all  sincere,  a  believing  world :  the  like  has 
been;  the  like  will  again  be, — cannot  help  being. 
That  were  the  right  sort  of  Worshippers  for  Heroes  : 
never  could  the  truly  Better  be  so  reverenced  as 
where  all  were  True  and  Good  ! — But  we  must  hasten 
to  Luther  and  his  Life. 

Luther's  birth-place  was  Eisleben  in  Saxony;  he 
eame  into  the  world  there  on  the  10th  of  November, 
1483.  It  was  an  accident  that  gave  this  honour  to 
Eisleben.  His  parents,  poor  mine-labourers  in  a 
village  of  that  region,  named  Mohra,  had  gone  to  the 
Eisleben  Winter-Fair :  in  the  tumult  of  this  scene  the 
Frau  Luther  was  taken  with  travail,  found  refuge  in 
some  poor  house  there,  and  the  boy  she  bore  was 
named  Martin  Luther.  Strange  enough  to  reflect 
upon  it.  This  poor  Frau  Luther,  she  had  gone  with 
her  husband  to  make  her  small  merchandisings ;  per- 
haps to  sell  the  lock  of  yarn  she  had  been  spinning, 
to  buy  the  small  winter-necessaries  for  her  narrow 
hut  or  household  :  in  the  whole  world,  that  day,  there 
was  not  a  more  entirely  unimportant-looking  pair  of 
people  than  this  Miner  and  his  wife.  And  yet  what 
were  all  Emperors,  Popes  and  Potentates,  in  compa- 
rison? There  was  born  here,  once  more,  a  Mighty 
Man  ;  whose  light  was  to  flame  as  the  beacon  over 
long  centuries  and  epochs  of  the  world ;  the  whole 
world  and  its  history  was  waiting  for  this  man.  It  is 
strange,  it  is  great.    It  leads  us  back  to  another  Birlh- 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  159 

hour,  in  a  still  meaner  environment,  Eighteen  Hun- 
dred years  ago, — of  which  it  is  fit  that  we  say  nothing, 
that  we  think  only  in  silence;  for  what  words  are 
there!  The  Age  of  Miracles  past?  The  Age  of 
Miracles  is  for  ever  here! — 

I  find  it  altogether  suitable  to  Luther's  function  in 
this  Earth,  and  doubtless  wisely  ordered  to  that  end 
by  the  Providence  presiding  over  him  and  us  and  all 
things j'\that  he  was  born  poor,  and  brought  up  poor, 
one  of  the  poorest  of  men.  He  had  to  beg,  as  the 
school-children  in  those  times  did;  singing  for  alms 
and  bread,  from  door  to  door.  Hardship,  rigorous 
Necessity  was  the  poor  boy's  companion;  no  man  nor 
no  thing  would  put  on  a  false  face  to  natter  Martin 
Luther.  Among  things,  not  among  the  shows  of 
things,  had  he  to  grow.  A  boy  of  rude  figure,  yet 
with  weak  health,  with  his  large  greedy  soul,  full  of- 
all  faculty  and  sensibility,  he  suffered  greatly.  But 
it  was  his  task  to  get  acquainted  with  realities,  and 
keep  acquainted  with  them,  at  wdiatever  cost:  his 
task  was  to  bring  the  whole  world  back  to  reality, 
for  it  had  dwelt  too  long  with  semblance!  A  youth 
nursed  up  in  wintry  whirlwinds,  in  desolate  darkness 
and  difficulty,  that  he  may  step  forth  at  last  from  his- 
stormy  Scandinavia,  strong  as  a  true  man,  as  a  god  : 
a  Christian  Odin, —  a  right  Thor  once  more,  with 
his  thunder-hammer,  to  smite  asunder  ugly  enough 
Jotuns  and  Giant-monsters ! 

Perhaps  the  turning  incident  of  his  life,  we  may 
fancy,  was  that  death  of  his  friend  Alexis,  by  light- 
ning, at  the  gate  of  Erfurt.  Luther  had  struggled  up 
through  boyhood,  better  and  worse;  displaying  in 
spite  of  all  hinderances  the  largest  intellect,  eager  to 
learn  :   his  father,  judging  doubtless  that  he   might 


160  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

promote  himself  in  the  world,  set  him  upon  the  study 
of  Law.  This  was  the  path  to  rise;  Luther,  with 
little  will  in  it  either  way,  had  consented:  he  was 
now  nineteen  years  of  age.  Alexis  and  he  had  been 
to  see  the  old  Luther  people  at  Mansfeldt;  were  got 
back  again  near  Erfurt,  when  a  thunder-storm  came 
on;  the  bolt  struck  Alexis,  he  fell  dead  at  Luther's 
hand.  What  is  this  Life  of  ours; — gone  in  a  moment, 
burnt  up  like  a  scroll,  into  the  blank  Eternity  !  What 
are  all  earthly  preferments,  Chancellorships,  King- 
ships? They  lie  shrunk  together  there!  The 
Earth  has  opened  on  them;  in  a  moment  they  are 
not,  and  Eternity  is.  Luther,  struck  to  the  heart, 
determined  to  devote  himself  to  God,  and  God's  ser- 
vice alone.  In  spite  of  all  dissuasions  from  his  father 
and  others,  he  became  a  Monk  in  the  Augustine 
Convent  at  Erfurt. 

This  was  probably  the  first  light-point  in  the  his- 
tory of  Luther,  his  purer  will  now  first  decisively  ut- 
tering itself;  but,  for  the  present,  it  was  still  as  one 
light-point  in  an  element  all  of  darkness.  He  says 
he  was  a  pious  monk,  ich  bin  eln  frommer  JtfCmch 
gewesen;  faithfully,  painfully  struggling  to  work  out 
the  truth  of  this  high  act  of  his;  but  it  was  to  little 
purpose.  His  misery  had  not  lessened;  had  rather, 
as  it  were,  increased  into  infinitude.  The  drudgeries 
he  had  to  do,  as  novice  in  his  Convent,  all  sorts  of 
slave-work,  were  not  his  grievance:  the  deep  earn- 
est soul  of  the  man  had  fallen  into  all  manner  of  black 
scruples,  dubitations;  he  believed  himself  likely  to 
die  soon,  and  far  worse  than  die.  One  hears  with  a 
new  interest  for  poor  Luther  that,  at  this  time,  he 
lived  in  terror  of  the  unspeakable  misery;  fancied 
that  he  was  doomed  to  eternal  reprobation.     Was  it 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  161 

not  the  humble  sincere  nature  of  the  man?  What 
was  he,  that  he  should  be  raised  to  Heaven!  He 
that  had  known  only  misery,  and  mean  slavery:  the 
news  was  too  blessed  to  be  credible^  It  could  not 
become  clear  to  him  how,  by  fasts,  vigils,  formalities 
and  mass-work,  a  man's  soul  could  be  saved.  He  fell 
into  the  blackest  wretchedness ;  had  to  wander  stag- 
gering as  on  the  verge  of  bottomless  Despair. 

It  must  have  been  a  most  blessed  discovery,  that 
of  an  old  Latin  Bible  which  he  found  in  the  Erfurt 
Library  about  this  time.  He  had  never  seen  the  Book 
before.  It  taught  him  another  lesson  than  that  of 
fasts  and  vigils.  A  brother  monk  too,  of  pious  expe- 
rience, was  helpful.  Luther  learned  now  that  a  man 
was  saved  not  by  singing  masses,  but  by  the  infinite 
grace  of  God :  a  more  credible  hypothesis.  He  gradu- 
ally got  himself  founded,  as  on  the  rock.  No  won- 
der he  should  venerate  the  Bible,  which  had  brought 
this  blessed  help  to  him.  He  prized  it  as  the  Word 
of  the  Highest  must  be  prized  by  such  a  man.  He 
determined  to  hold  by  that;  as  through  life  and  to 
death  he  firmly  did. 

This  then  is  his  deliverance  from  darkness,  his  final 
triumph  over  darkness,  what  we  call  his  conversion; 
for  himself  the  most  important  of  all  epochs.  That 
he  should  now  grow  daily  in  peace  and  clearness; 
that,  unfolding  now  the  great  talents  and  virtues  im- 
planted in  him  he  should  rise  to  importance  in  his 
Convent,  in  his  country,  and  be  found  more  and 
more  useful  in  all  honest  business  of  life,  is  a  natu- 
ral result.  He  was  sent  on  missions  by  his  Augustine 
Order,  as  a  man  of  talent  and  fidelity  fit  to  do  their 
business  well:  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  Friedrich, 
named  the  Wise,  a  truly  wise  and  just  prince,  had 
14 


162  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

cast  his  eye  on  him  as  a  valuable  person;  made 
him  Professor  in  his  new  University  of  Wittenberg, 
Preacher  too  at  Wittenberg  ;  in  both  which  capacities, 
as  in  all  duties  he  did,  this  Luther,  in  the  peaceable 
sphere  of  common  life,  was  gaining  more  and  more 
esteem  with  all  °;ood  men. 

It  was  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  that  he  first  saw 
Rome;  being  sent  thither,  as  I  said,  on  mission  from 
his  Convent.  Pope  Julius  the  Second,  and  what  was 
going  on  at  Rome,  must  have  filled  the  mind  of  Lu- 
ther with  amazement.  He  had  come  as  to  the  Sa- 
cred City,  throne  of  God's  High-priest  on  Earth  : 
and  he  found  it — what  we  know  !  Many  thoughts 
it  must  have  given  the  man  ;  many  which  we  have 
no  record  of,  which  perhaps  he  did  not  himself  know 
how  to  utter.  This  Rome,  this  scene  of  false  priests, 
clothed  not  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  but  in  far  other 
vesture,  \s false:  but  what  is  it  to  Luther?  A  mean 
man  he,  how  shall  he  reform  a  world  ?  That  was 
far  from  his  thoughts.  A  humble,  solitary  man,  why 
should  he  at  all  meddle  with  the  world  ?  It  was  the 
task  of  quite  higher  men  than  he.  His  business 
was  to  guide  his  own  footsteps  wisely  through  the 
world.  Let  him  do  his  own  obscure  duty  in  it  well; 
the  rest,  horrible  and  dismal  as  it  looks,  is  in  God's 
hand,  not  in  his. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  what  might  have  been  the 
issue,  had  Roman  Popery  happened  to  pass  this  Lu- 
ther by;  to  go  on  in  its  great  wasteful  orbit,  and  not 
come  athwart  his  little  path,  and  force  him  to  assault 
it  !  Conceivable  enough  that,  in  this  case,  he  might 
have  held  his  peace  about  the  abuses  of  Rome;  left 
Providence,  and  God  on  high,  to  deal  with  them  !  A 
modest  quiet  man  ;  not  prompt  he  to   attack   irrevc- 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  163 

rently  persons  in  authority.  His  clear  task,  as  1  say, 
was  to  do  his  own  duty;  to  walk  wisely  in  this  world 
of  confused  wickedness,  and  save  his  own  soul  alive. 
But  the  Roman  High-priesthood  did  come  athwart 
him;  afar  off  at  Wittenberg  he,  Luther,  could  not 
get  lived  in  honesty  for  it;  he  remonstrated,  resist- 
ed, came  to  extremity;  was  struck  at,  struck  again, 
and  so  it  came  to  wager  of  battle  between  them ! 
This  is  worth  attending  to  in  Luther's  history.  Per- 
haps no  man  of  so  humble,  peaceable  a  disposition 
ever  filled  the  world  with  contention.  We  cannot 
but  see  that  he  would  have  loved  privacy,  quiet 
diligence  in  the  shade;  that  it  was  against  his  will 
he  ever  became  a  notoriety.  Notoriety:  what  would 
that  do  for  him  ?  The  goal  of  his  march  through  this 
world  was  the  Infinite  Heaven;  an  indubitable  goal 
for  him:  in  a  few  years,  he  should  either  have  at- 
tained that,  or  lost  it  for  ever!  We  will  say  nothing 
at  all,  I  think,  of  that  sorrowfulest  of  theories,  of  its 
being  some  mean  shopkeeper  grudge,  of  the  Augus- 
tine Monk  against  the  Dominican,  that  first  kindled 
the  wrath  of  Luther,  and  produced  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  We  will  say  to  the  people  who  main- 
tain it,  if  indeed  any  such  exist  now,  Get  first  into  the 
sphere  of  thought  by  which  it  is  so  much  as  possible 
to  judge  of  Luther,  or  of  any  man  like  Luther,  other- 
wise than  distractedly;  we  may  then  begin  arguing 
with  you. 

The  Monk  Tetzel,  sent  out  carelessly  in  the  way 
of  trade,  by  Leo  Tenth, — who  merely  wanted  to 
raise  a  little  money,  and  for  the  rest  seems  to  have 
been  a  Pagan  rather  than  a  Christian,  so  far  as  he 
was  any  thing, — arrived  at  Wittenberg,  and  drove  his 
scandalous  trade  there.    Luther's  flock  bought  indul- 


164  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

gences;  in  the  confessional  of  his  Church,  people 
pleaded  to  him  that  they  had  already  got  their  sins 
pardoned.  Luther,  if  he  would  not  be  found  wanting 
at  his  own  post,  a  false  sluggard  and  coward  at  the 
very  centre  of  the  little  space  of  ground  that  was  his 
own  and  no  other  man's,  had  to  step  forth  against 
Indulgences,  and  declare  aloud  that  they  were  a  fu- 
tility and  sorrowful  mockery;  that  no  man's  sins 
could  be  pardoned  by  them.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  whole  Reformation.  We  know  how  it  went; 
forward  from  this  first  public  challenge  of  Tetzel,  on 
the  last  day  of  October,  1517,  through  remonstrance 
and  argument; — spreading  ever  wider,  rising  ever 
higher :  till  it  became  unquenchable,  and  enveloped 
all  the  world.  Luther's  heart's  desire  was  to  have 
this  grief  and  other  griefs  amended;  his  thought  was 
still  far  from  introducing  separation  in  the  Church, 
or  revolting  against  the  Pope,  father  of  Christendom. 
The  elegant  Pagan  Pope  cared  little  about  this  Monk 
and  his  doctrines;  wished,  however,  to  have  done 
with  the  noise  of  him :  in  a  space  of  some  three 
years,  having  tried  various  softer  methods,  he  thought 
good  to  end  it  by  fire.  He  dooms  the  Monk's  wri- 
tings to  be  burnt  by  the  hangman,  and  his  body  to 
be  sent  bound  to  Rome — probably  for  a  similar  pur- 
pose. It  was  the  way  they  had  ended  with  Huss, 
with  Jerome,  the  century  before.  A  short  argument, 
fire.  Poor  Huss:  he  came  to  that  Constance  Coun- 
cil, with  all  imaginable  promises  and  safe-conducts; 
an  earnest,  not  rebellious  kind  of  man :  they  laid 
him  instantly  in  a  stone  dungeon  "three  feet  wide, 
six  feet  high,  seven  feet  long;"  burnt  the  true  voice 
out  of  this  world;  choked  it  in  smoke  and  fire.  That 
was  not  well  done ! 


LECT.  IV.       THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  165 

I,  for  one,  pardon  Luther  for  now  altogether  revolt- 
ing against  the  Pope.  The  elegant  Pagan,  by  this 
fire-decree  of  his,  had  kindled  into  noble  just  wrath 
the  bravest  heart  then  living  in  this  world.  The 
bravest,  if  also  one  of  the  humblest,  peaceablest;  it 
was  now  kindled.  These  words  of  mine,  words  of 
truth  and  soberness,  aiming  faithfully,  as  human  in- 
ability would  allow,  to  promote  God's  truth  on 
Earth,  and  save  men's  souls,  you,  God's  vicegerent 
on  earth,  answer  them  by  the  hangman  and  fire? 
You  will  burn  me  and  them,  for  answer  to  the  God's- 
message  they  strove  to  bring  you?  You  are  not 
God's  vicegerent;  you  are  another's,  I  think!  I  take 
your  Bull,  as  an  emparchmented  Lie,  and  burn  it* 
You  will  do  what  you  see  good  next;  this  is  what  I  do. 
— It  was  on  the  tenth  of  December,  1520,  three  years 
after  the  beginning  of  the  business,  that  Luther 
•'  with  a  great  concourse  of  people,"  took  this  indig- 
nant step  of  burning  the  Pope's  fire-decree  in  the 
market-place  of  Wittenberg.  Wittenburg  looked  on 
"with  shoutings;"  the  whole  world  was  looking  on. 
The  Pope  should  not  have  provoked  that  "shout!" 
It  was  the  shout  of  the  awakening  of  nationsrf-Thc 
quiet  German  heart,  modest,  patient  of  much,  had  at 
length  got  more  than  it  could  bear.-f-  Formulism, 
Pagan  Popism,  and  other  Falsehood  and  corrupt 
Semblance  had  ruled  long  enough;  and  here  once 
more  was  a  man  found  who  durst  tell  all  men  that 
God's-world  stood  not  on  semblances,  but  on  realities: 
that  Life  was  a  truth,  and  not  a  lie! 

At  bottom   as  we  said  above,  we  are  to  consider 

Luther  as  a  Prophet  Idol-breaker;  a  bringer  back  of 

men  to  reality.     It  is  the  function  of  great  men  and 

teachers.     Mahomet  said,  These   idols  of  yours  are 

14* 


166  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

wood;  you  put  wax  and  oil  on  them,  the  flies  stick 
on  them:  they  are  not  God,  I  tell  you,  they  are 
black  wood!  Luther  said  to  the  Pope,  This  thing 
of  yours  that  you  call  a  Pardon  of  Sins,  it  is  a  bit  of 
rag-paper  with  ink.  It  is  nothing  else;  it,  and  so 
much  like  it,  is  nothing  else.  God  alone  can  par- 
don sins.  Popeship,  spiritual  Fatherhood  of  God's 
Church,  is  that  a  vain  semblance,  of  cloth  and 
parchment?  It  is  an  awful  act.  God's  Church  is 
not  a  semblance.  Heaven  and  Hell  are  not  sem- 
blances. I  stand  on  this,  since  you  drive  me  to  it. 
Standing  on  this,  1,  a  poor  German  monk,  am  stronger 
than  you  all.  I  stand  solitary,  friendless,  one  man, 
on  God's  Truth ;  you  with  your  tiaras,  triple-hats, 
with  your  treasuries  and  armories,  thunders  spiritual 
and  temporal,  stand  on  the  Devil's  Lie,  and  are  not 
so  strong! —  -jL, 

The  Diet  of  Worms,  Luther's  appearance  there  on 
the  17th  of  April,  1521,  may  be  considered  as  the 
greatest  scene  in  Modern  European  History;  the 
point,  indeed,  from  which  the  whole  subsequent 
history  of  civilization  takes  its  rise.  After  multiplied 
negotiations,  disputations,  it  had  come  to  this.  The 
young  Emperor  Charles  Fifth,  with  all  the  Princes 
of  Germany,  Papal  nuncios,  dignitaries  spiritual  and 
temporal,  are  assembled  there;  Luther  is  to  appear 
and  answer  for  himself,  whether  he  will  recant  or 
not.  The  world's  pomp  and  power  sits  there  on 
this  hand:  on  that,  stands  up  for  God's  Truth,  one 
man,  Hans  Luther,  the  poor  miner's  Son.  Friends 
had  reminded  him  of  Huss,  advised  him  not  to  go; 
he  would  not  be  advised.  A  large  company  of  friends 
rode  out  to  meet  him,  with  still  more  earnest  warn- 
ings; he  answered,  "Were  there  as  many  Devils 


LECT.  IV.      THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  167 

in  Worms  as  there  are  roof-tiles,  I  would  on."  The 
people  on  the  morrow,  as  he  went  to  the  hall  of  the 
Diet,  crowded  the  windows  and  house-tops,  some  of 
them  calling  out  to  him,  in  solemn  words,  not  to  re- 
cant: "Whosoever  denieth  me  before  men!"  they 
cried  to  him, — as  in  a  kind  of  solemn  petition  and 
adjuration.  Was  it  not  in  reality  our  petition  too, 
the  petition  of  the  whole  world,  lying  in  dark  bondage 
of  soul,  paralyzed  under  a  black  spectral  Nightmare 
and  triple-hatted  Chimera,  calling  itself  Father  in 
God  and  what  not:  "Free  us;  it  rests  with  thee; 
-f desert  us  not!'^  Luther  did  not  desert  us.  His 
speech,  of  two  hours,  distinguished  itself  by  its  re- 
spectful, wise  and  honest  tone;  submissive  to  what- 
soever could  lawfully  claim  submission,  not  submis- 
sive to  any  more  than  that.  His  writings,  he  said, 
were  partly  his  own,  partly  derived  from  the  Word 
of  God.  As  to  what  was  his  own,  human  infirmity 
entered  into  it;  unguarded  anger,  blindness,  many 
things  doubtless  which  it  were  a  blessing  for  him, 
could  he  abolish  altogether.  But  as  to  what  stood  on 
sound  truth  and  the  Word  of  God,  he  could  not  re- 
cant it.  How  could  he?  "  Confute  me,"  he  con- 
cluded, "  by  proofs  of  Scripture,  or  else  by  plain, 
just  arguments:  1  cannot  recant  otherwise.  {/For  it 
is  neither  safe  nor  prudent  to  do  aught  against  con- 
science./ /Here  stand  L|  I  can  do  no  other:  God  assist 
me!"4-lt  is,  as  we  say,  the  greatest  monument  in 
the  Modern  History  of  Men.  English  Puritanism, 
England  and  its  Parliaments,  Americas,  and  vast 
work  of  these  two  centuries;  French  Revolution,  Eu- 
rope and  its  work  every  where  at  present;  the  germ 
of  it  all  lay  there:  had  Luther  in  that  moment  done 
other,  it  had  all  been  otherwise!      The   European 


168  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

World  was  asking  him :  Am  I  to  sink  ever  lower  into 
falsehood,  stagnant  putrescence,  loathsome  accursed 
death;  or,  with  whatever  paroxysm,  to  cast  the  false- 
hoods out  of  me,  and  be  cured  and  live  ? 

Great  wars,  contentions,  and  disunion  followed  out 
of  this  Reformation;  which  last  down  to  our  day,  and 
are  yet  far  from  ended.  Great  talk  and  crimination 
has  been  made  about  these.  They  are  lamentable, 
undeniable;  but  after  all,  what  has  Luther  or  his 
cause  to  do  with  them?  It  seems  strange  reasoning 
to  charge  the  Reformation  with  all  this.  When 
Hercules  turned  the  purifying  river  into  King  Au- 
geas's  stables,  I  have  no  doubt  the  confusion  that 
resulted  was  considerable  all  around:  but  I  think  it 
was  not  Hercules's  blame;  it  was  some  other's  blame. 
The  Reformation  might  bring  what  results  it  liked 
when  it  came,  but  the  Reformation  simply  could  not 
help  coming.  To  all  Popes  and  Popes'  advocates, 
expostulating,  lamenting  and  accusing,  the  answer 
of  the  world  is:  Once  for  all,  your  Popehood  has  be- 
come untrue.  No  matter  how  good  it  was,  how  good 
you  say  it  is,  we  cannot  believe  it;  the  light  of  our 
whole  mind,  given  us  to  walk  by  from  Heaven  above, 
finds  it  henceforth  a  thing  unbelieveable.  We  will 
not  believe  it,  we  will  not  try  to  believe  it, — we  dare 
not!  The  thing  is  untrue;  we  were  traitors  against 
the  Giver  of  all  Truth,  if  we  durst  pretend  to  think 
it  true.  Away  with  it;  let  whatsoever  likes  come  in 
the  place  of  it:  with  it  we  can  have  no  farther  trade! 
— Luther  and  his  Protestantism  is  not  responsible  for 
wars;  the  false  Simulacra  that  forced  him  to  protest, 
they  are  responsible.  Luther  did  what  every  man 
that  God   has  made  has  not  only  the  right,  but  lies 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  169 

under  the  sacred  duty,  to  do:  answered  a  Falsehood 
when  it  questioned  him,  Dost  thou  believe  me? — No! 
— At  what  cost  soever,  without  counting  of  costs,  this 
thing  behooved  to  be  done.  Union,  an  organization 
spiritual  and  material,  a  far  nobler  than  any  Popedom 
or  Feudalism  in  their  truest  days,  I  never  doubt,  is 
coming  for  the  world ;  sure  to  come.  But  on  Fact 
alone,  not  on  Semblance  and  Simulacrum,  will  it  be 
able  either  to  come,  or  to  stand  when  come.  With 
union  grounded  on  falsehood,  and  ordering  us  to 
speak  and  act  lies,  we  will  not  have  any  thing  to  do. 
Peace  ?  A  brutal  lethargy  is  peaceable,  the  noisome 
grave  is  peaceable.  We  hope  for  a  living  peace, 
not  a  dead  one! 

And  yet,  in  prizing  justly  the  indispensable  bless- 
ings of  the  New,  let  us  not  be  unjust  to  the  old. 
The  Old  icas  true,  if  it  no  longer  is.  In  Dante's  days 
it  needed  no  sophistry,  self-blinding  or  other  dis- 
honesty, to  get  itself  reckoned  true.  It  was  good 
then;  nay,  there  is  in  the  soul  of  it  a  deathless  good. 
The  cry  of  "No  Popery,"  is  foolish  enough  in  these 
days.  The  speculation  that  Popery  is  on  the  in- 
crease, building  new  chapels,  and  so  forth,  may  pass 
for  one  of  the  idlest  ever  started.  Very  curious:  to 
count  up  a  few  Popish  chapels,  listen  to  a  few 
Protestant  logic-choppings, — to  much  dull-droning 
drowsy  inanity  that  still  calls  itself  Protestant,  and 
say:  See,  Protestantism  is  dead;  Popism  is  more 
alive  than  it,  will  be  alive  after  it! — Drowsy  inani- 
ties, not  a  few,  that  call  themselves  Protestant  are 
dead;  but  Protestantism  has  not  died  yet,  that  I  hear 
of!  Protestantism,  if  we  will  look,  has  in  these  days 
produced  its  Goethe,  its  Napoleon;  German  Litera- 
ture and  the  French  Revolution ;  rather  considerable 


170  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

signs  of  life!  Nay,  at  bottom,  what  else  is  alive  but 
Protestantism?  The  life  of  most  else  that  one  meets 
is  a  galvanic  one  merely, — not  a  pleasant,  not  a  last- 
ing sort  of  life! 

Popery  can  build  new  chapels;  welcome  to  do  so, 
to  all  lengths.  Popery  cannot  come  back,  any  more 
than  Paganism  can, — which  also  still  lingers  in  some 
countries.  But,  indeed,  it  is  with  these  things,  as 
with  the  ebbing  of  the  sea:  you  look  at  the  waves 
oscillating  hither,  thither  on  the  beach;  for  minutes 
)rou  cannot  tell  how  it  is  going:  look  in  half  an  hour 
where  it  is, — look  in  half  a  century  where  your  Pope- 
hood  is!  Alas,  would  there  were  no  greater  danger 
to  our  Europe  than  the  poor  old  Pope's  revival! 
Thor  may  as  soon  try  to  revive. — And  withal  this 
oscillation  has  a  meaning.  The  poor  old  Popehood 
will  not  die  away  entirely  as  Thor  has  done,  for  some 
time  yet ;  nor  ought  it.  We  may  say,  the  Old  never 
dies  till  this  happen,  till  all  the  soul  of  good  that 
was  in  it  have  got  itself  transfused  into  the  practical 
New.  While  a  good  work  remains  capable  of  being 
done  by  the  Romish  form;  or,  what  is  inclusive  of 
all,  while  a  pious  life  remains  capable  of  being  led  by 
it,  just  so  long,  if  we  consider,  will  this  or  the  other 
human  soul  adopt  it,  go  about  as  a  living  witness  of 
it.  So  long  it  will  obtrude  itself  on  the  eye  of  us 
who  reject  it,  till  we  in  our  practice  too  have  appro- 
priated whatsoever  of  truth  was  in  it.  Then,  but 
also  not  till  then,  it  will  have  no  charm  more  for 
any  man.  It  lasts  here  for  a  purpose.  Let  it  last 
as  long  as  it  can. — 

Of  Luther  I  will  add  now,  in  reference  to  all  these 
wars  and  bloodshed,  the  noticeable  fact  that  none  of 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  171 

them  began  so  long  as  he  continued  living.  The 
controversy  did  not  get  to  fighting  so  long  as  he  was 
there.  To  me  it  is  proof  of  his  greatness  in  all  senses, 
this  fact.  How  seldom  do  we  find  a  man  that  has 
stirred  up  some  vast  commotion,  who  does  not  him- 
self perish,  swept  away  in  it.  Such  is  the  usual 
course  of  revolutionists.  Luther  continued,  in  a  good 
degree,  sovereign  of  this  greatest  revolution;  all 
Protestants,  of  what  rank  or  function  soever,  looking 
much  to  him  for  guidance;  and  he  held  it  peaceable, 
continued  firm  at  the  centre  of  it.*  A  man  to  do  this 
must  have  a  kingly  faculty;  he  must  have  the  gift  to 
discern  at  all  turns  where  the  true  heart  of  the  mat- 
ter lies,  and  to  plant  himself  courageously  on  that, 
as  a  strong  true  man,  that  other  true  men  may  rally 
round  him  there.  He  will  not  continue  leader  ol 
men  otherwise."  Luther's  clear  deep  force  of  judg- 
ment, his  force  of  all  sorts,  of  silence,  of  tolerance 
and  moderation,  among  others,  are  very  notable  in 
these  circumstances. 

Tolerance,  I  say;  a  very  genuine  kind  of  tole- 
rance: he  distinguishes  what  is  essential,  and  what 
is  not;  the  unessential  may  go  as  it  will.  A  complaint 
comes  that  such  and  such  a  Reformed  Preacher  "will 
not  preach  without  a  cassock/'  Well,  answers  Lu- 
ther, what  harm  will  a  cassock  do  the  man?  "  Let 
him  have  a  cassock  to  preach  in;  let  him  have  three 
cassocks  if  he  find  benefit  in  them!"  His  conduct  in 
the  matter  of  Karlstadt's  wild  image-breaking;  of 
the  Anabaptists;  of  the  Peasant's  War,  shows  a  noble 
strength,  very  different  from  spasmodic  violence. 
With  sure  prompt  insight  he  discriminates  what  is 
what:  a  strong  just  man  speaks  forth  what  is  the 
wise  course,  and  all  men  follow  him  in  that.    Luther's 


172  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

written  works  give  similar  testimony  of  him.     The 
dialect  of  these  speculations  is  now  grown  obsolete 
for  us;   but  one  still  reads   them  with  a  singular  at- 
traction.    And  indeed  the  mere  grammatical  diction 
is   still   legible  enough;   Luther's  merit  in  literary- 
history  is  one  of  the  greatest:  his  dialect  became  the 
language  of  all  writing.    They  are  not  well  written, 
these  four-and-twenty  quartos  of  his;  written  hastily, 
with   quite   other   than  literary  objects.     But  in   no 
Books  have  I  found  a  more  robust,  genuine,  I  will 
say  noble  faculty  of  a  man  than  in  these.     A  rugged 
honesty,  homeliness,  simplicity;  a  rugged  sterling 
sense  and  strength.    He  flashes  out  illumination  from 
him;  his  smiting  idiomatic  phrases  seem  to  cleave 
into  the  very  secret  of  the  matter.    Good  humour  too, 
nay  tender  affection,  nobleness,  and  depth:  this  man 
could  have  been  a  Poet  too?    He  had  to  work  an  Epic 
Poem,  not  to  write  one.    1  call  him  a  great  thinker;  as 
indeed   his  greatness  of  heart  already  betokens  that. 
Richter  says  of  Luther's  words,  "his  words  are  half- 
battles."     They  may  be    called  so.     The  essential 
quality  of  him  was  that  he  could  fight  and   conquer; 
that  he  was  a  right  piece  of  human  Valour.    No  more 
valiant  man,  no  mortal  heart  to  be  called  braver,  that 
one  has  record  of,  ever  lived  in  that  Teutonic  Kin- 
dred, whose  character  is  valour.    His  defiance  of  the 
"  Devils  "  in  Worms  was  not  a  mere  boast,  as  the  like 
might  be  if  now  spoken.    It  was  a  faith  of  Luther's 
that  there  were  Devils,  spiritual  denizens  of  the  Pit, 
continually  besetting  men.     Many  times,  in  his  wri- 
tings, this  turns  up;  and  a  most  small  sneer  has  been 
grounded  on  it  by  some.     In  the  room  of  the  Wart- 
burg,  where   he  sat  translating  the  Bible,  they  still 
show  you  a  black  spot  on  the  wall;  the  strange  me- 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HE110  AS  PRIEST.  1 

morial  of  one  of  these  conflicts.  Luther  sat  trans- 
lating one  of  the  Psalms;  he  was  worn  down  with  long 
labour,  with  sickness,  abstinence  from  food:  there 
rose  before  him  some  hideous  indefinable  Image, 
which  he  took  for  the  Evil  One,  to  forbid  his  work: 
Luther  started  up,  with  fiend-defiance;  flung  his  ink- 
stand at  the  spectre,  and  it  disappeared!  The  spot 
still  remains  there;  a  curious  monument  of  several 
things.  Any  apothecary's  apprentice  can  now  tell 
us  what  we  are  to  think  of  this  apparition,  in  a  sci- 
entific sense;  but  the  man's  heart  that  dare  rise 
defiant  face  to  face,  against  Hell  itself,  can  give  no 
higher  proof  of  fearlessness.  The  thing  he  will  quail 
before  exists  not  on  this  Earth  or  under  it. — Fear- 
less enough!  They  spoke  once  about  his  not  being 
at  Leipzig,  as  if  Duke  George  had  hindered  him," 
a  great  enemy  of  his.  It  was  not  for  Duke  George, 
answered  he:  No;  "  If  I  had  business  at  Leipzig,  I 
would  go,  though  it  rained  Duke  Georges  for  nine 
days  running." 

At  the  same  time,  they  err  greatly  who  imagine 
that  this  man's  courage  was  ferocity,  mere  coarse  dis- 
obedient obstinacy  and  savagery,  as  many  do.  Far 
from  that.  There  may  be  an  absence  of  fear  which 
arises  from  the  absence  of  thought  or  affection,  from 
the  presence  of  hatred  and  stupid  fury.  We  do  not 
value  the  courage  of  the  tiger  highly!  With  Luther 
it  was  far  otherwise;  no  accusation  could  be  more 
unjust  than  this  of  mere  ferocious  violence  brought 
against  him.  A  most  gentle  heart  withal,  full  of 
pity  and  love,  as  indeed  the  truly  valiant  heart  ever 
is.  The  tiger  before  a  stronger  foe — flies:  the  tiger 
is  not  what  we  call  valiant,  only  fierce  and  cruel. 
I  know  few  things  more  touching  than  those  soft 
15 


174  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

breathings  of  affection,  soft  as  a  child's  or  a  mothers, 
in  this  great  wild  heart  of  Luther.  So  honest,  un- 
adulterated with  any  cant;  homely,  rude  in  their 
utterance;  pure  as  water  welling  from  the  rock. 
What,  in  fact,  was  all  that  down-pressed  mood  of 
despair  and  reprobation,  which  we  saw  in  his  youth, 
but  the  outcome  of  pre-eminent  thoughtful  gentle- 
ness, affections  too  keen  and  fine?  It  is  the  course 
such  men  as  the  poor  Poet  Cowper  fall  into.  Luther, 
to  a  slight  observer,  might  have  seemed  a  timid,  weak 
man;  modesty,  affectionate  shrinking  tenderness  the 
chief  distinction  of  him.  It  is  a  noble  valour  which 
is  roused  in  a  heart  like  this,  once  stirred  up  into  defi- 
ance; all  kindled  into  a  heavenly  blaze. 

In  Luther's  Table-talk,  a  posthumous  Book  of  anec- 
dotes and  sayings  collected  by  his  friends,  the  most 
interesting  now  of  all  the  Books  proceeding  from  him, 
we  have  many  beautiful  unconscious  displays  of  the 
man,  and  what  sort  of  nature  he  had.  PI  is  behaviour 
at  the  death-bed  of  his  little  Daughter,  so  still,  so  great 
and  loving,  is  among  the  most  affecting  things.  He 
is  resigned  that  his  little  Margaret  should  die,  yet 
longs  inexpressibly  that  she  might  live; — follows,  in 
awe-struck  thought,  the  flight  of  her  little  soul  through 
those  unknown  realms.  Awe-struck;  most  heartfelt, 
we  can  see;  and  sincere, — for  after  all  dogmatic 
creeds  and  articles,  he  feels  what  nothing  it  is  that 
we  know,  or  can  know:  His  little  Margaret  shall  be 
with  God,  as  God  wills;  for  Luther  too  that  is  all; 
Islam  is  all. 

Once,  he  looks  out  from  his  solitary  "  Patmos,"  the 
Wartburg,  in  the  middle  of  the  night:  The  great 
vault  of  Immensity,  long  flights  of  clouds  sailing 
through  it, — dumb,  gaunt,  huge, — who  supports  all 


LECT.  IV.       THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  175 

that?  "None  ever  saw  the  pillars  of  it;  yet  it  is 
supported."  God  supports  it.  We  must  know  that 
God  is  great,  that  God  is  good;  and  trust,  where  we 
cannot  see. — Returning  home  from  Leipzig  once, 
he  is  struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  harvest-fields:  How 
it  stands  that  golden  yellow  corn,  on  its  fair  taper 
stem,  its  golden  head  bent,  all  rich  and  waving  there, 
— the  meek  Earth,  at  God's  kind  bidding,  has  pro- 
duced it  once  again;  the  bread  of  man! — In  the  gar- 
den at  Wittenberg  one  evening  at  sunset,  a  little  bird 
has  perched  for  the  night:  That  little  bird,  says 
Luther,  above  it  are  the  stars  and  deep  Heaven  of 
worlds;  yet  it  has  folded  its  little  wings;  gone  trust- 
fully to  rest  there  as  in  its  home:  the  Maker  of  it  has 

given  it  too  a  home! Neither  are  mirthful  terms 

wanting:  there  is  a  great  free  human  heart  in  this 
man.  The  common  speech  of  him  has  a  rugged 
nobleness,  idiomatic,  expressive,  genuine;  gleams 
here  and  there  with  beautiful  poetic  tints.  One  feels 
him  to  be  a  great  brother  man.  His  love  of  music, 
indeed  is  not  this,  as  it  were,  the  summary  of  all  these 
affections  in  him?  Many  a  wild  unutterability  he 
spoke  forth  from  him  in  the  tones  of  his  flute.  The 
Devils  fled  from  his  flute,  he  says.  Death-defiance 
on  the  one  hand,  and  such  love  of  music  on  the  other: 
I  could  call  these  the  two  opposite  poles  of  a  great 
soul;  between  these  two  all  great  things  had  room. 

Luther's  face  is  to  me  expressive  of  him;  in  Kra- 
nach's  best  portraits  I  find  the  true  Luther.  A  rude, 
plebeian  face;  with  its  huge  crag-like  brows  and 
bones,  the  emblem  of  rugged  energy;  at  first,  almost 
a.  repulsive  face.  Yet  in  the  eyes  especially  there 
is  a  wild  silent  sorrow;  an  unnameable  melancholy, 
the  element  of  all  gentle  and  fine  affections;  giving 


176  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

to  the  rest  the  true  stamp  of  nobleness.  Laughter 
was  in  this  Luther,  as  we  said;  but  tears  also  were 
there.  Tears  also  were  appointed  him;  tears  and 
hard  toil.  The  basis  of  his  life  was  Sadness,  Earnest- 
ness. In  his  latter  days,  after  all  triumphs  and  vic- 
tories, he  expresses  himself  heartily  weary  of  living; 
he  considers  that  God  alone  can  and  will  regulate 
the  course  things  are  taking,  and  that  perhaps  the 
Day  of  judgment  is  not  far.  As  for  him,  he  longs 
for  one  thing:  that  God  would  release  him  from  his 
labour,  and  let  him  depart  and  be  at  rest.  They 
understand  little  of  the  man  who  cite  this  in  dis- 
credit of  him! — I  will  call  this  Luther  a  true  Great 
Man;  great  in  intellect,  in  courage,  affection  and 
integrity;  one  of  our  most  loveable  and  precious  men. 
Great,  not  as  a  hewn  obelisk,  but  as  an  Alpine 
mountain, — so  simple,  honest,  spontaneous,  not  set- 
ting up  to  be  great  at  all;  there  for  quite  another 
purpose  than  being  great!  Ah,  yes,  unsubduable 
granite,  piercing  far  and  wide  into  the  Heavens; — 
yet  in  the  clefts  of  it  fountains,  green  beautiful  val- 
leys with  flowers  !  A  right  Spiritual  Hero  and  Pro- 
phet; once  more,  a  true  Son  of  Nature  and  Fact, 
for  whom  these  centuries,  and  many  that  are  to  come 
yet,  will  be  thankful  to  Heaven. 

The  most  interesting  phasis  which  the  Reforma- 
tion any  where  assumes,  especially  for  us  English,  is 
that  of  Puritanism.  In  Luther's  own  country,  Pro- 
testantism soon  dwindled  into  a  rather  barren  affair; 
not  a  religion  or  faith,  but  rather  now  a  theological 
jangling  of  argument,  the  proper  seat  of  it  not  the 
heart;  the  essence  of  it  skeptical  contention:  which 
indeed  has  jangled  more  and  more,  down  to  Voltairism 


LECT.  V.  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  177 

i  tself,  through  Gustavus-Adolphus  contentions  onward 
to  French  Revolution  ones!  But  in  our  Island  there 
arose  a  Puritanism,  which  even  got  itself  establish- 
ed as  a  Presbyterianism  and  national  Church  among 
the  Scotch;  which  came  forth  as  a  real  business  of 
the  heart;  and  has  produced  in  the  world  very  no- 
table fruit.  In  some  senses,  one  may  say  it  is  the 
only  Phasis  of  Protestantism  that  ever  got  to  the  rank 
of  being  a  Faith,  a  true  heart-communication  with 
Heaven,  and  of  exhibiting  itself  in  History  as  such. 
We  must  spare  a  few  words  for  Knox;  himself  a  brave 
and  remarkable  man;  but  still  more  important  as 
Chief  Priest  and  Founder,  which  one  may  consider 
him  to  be,  of  the  Faith  that  became  Scotland's,  New 
England's,  Oliver  Cromwell's.  History  will  have 
something  to  say  about  this,  for  some  time  to  come! 
We  may  censure  Puritanism  as  we  please;  and  no 
one  of  us,  I  suppose,  but  would  find  it  a  very  rough 
defective  thing.  But  we,  and  all  men,  may  under- 
stand that  it  was  a  genuine  thing;  for  Nature  has 
adopted  it,  and  it  has  grown,  and  grows.  I  say  some- 
times, that  all  goes  by  wager  of  battle  in  this  world; 
that  strength,  well  understood,  is  the  measure  of  all 
worth.  Give  a  thing  time  ;  if  it  can  succeed,  it  is  a 
right  thing.  Look  now  at  American  Saxondom;  and 
at  that  little  Fact  of  the  sailing  of  the  Mayflower, 
two  hundred  years  ago,  from  Delft  Haven  in  Hol- 
land! Were  we  of  open  sense  as  the  Greeks  were, 
we  had  found  a  Poem  here;* one  of  nature's  own 
Poems,  such  as  she  writes  in  broad  facts  over  great 
continents.  For  it  was  properly  the  beginning  of 
America:  there  were  straggling  settlers  in  America 
before,  some  material  as  of  a  body  was  there;  but 
the  soul  of  it  was  first  this.  These  poor  men,  driven 
15* 


178  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

out  of  their  own  country,  not  able  well  to  live  in 
Holland,  determine  on  settling  in  the  New  World. 
Black  untamed  forests  are  there,  and  wild  savage 
creatures;  but  not  so  cruel  as  Star-chamber  hang- 
men. They  thought  the  Earth  would  yield  them 
food,  if  they  tilled  honestly;  the  everlasting  Heaven 
would  stretch,  there  too,  overhead;  they  should  be 
left  in  peace,  to  prepare  for  Eternity  by  living  well 
in  this  world  of  time;  worshipping  in  what  they 
thought  the  true,  not  the  idolatrous  way.  They 
clubbed  their  small  means  together;  hired  a  ship, 
the  little  ship  Mayflower,  and  made  ready  to  set  sail. 
In  Neat's  History  of  the  Puritans  is  an  account  of 
the  ceremony  of  their  departure:  solemnity,  we 
might  call  it  rather,  for  it  was  a  real  act  of  worship. 
Their  minister  went  down  with  them  to  the  beach, 
and  their  brethren  whom  they  were  to  leave  behind ; 
all  joined  in  solemn  prayer  (the  Prayer  too  is  given,) 
That  God  would  have  pity  on  his  poor  children,  and 
go  with  them  into  the  waste  wilderness,  for  He  also 
had  made  that,  He  was  there  also  as  well  as  here. — 
Hah!  These  men,  I  think,  had  a  work!  The  weak 
thing,  weaker  than  a  child,  becomes  strong  one  day, 
if  it  be  a  true  thing.  Puritanism  was  only  despica- 
ble, laughable  then ;  but  nobody  can  manage  to 
laugh  at  it  now.  Puritanism  has  got  weapons  and 
sinews;  it  has  fire-arms,  war-navies;  it  has  cunning 
in  its  ten  fingers,  strength  in  its  right  arm:  it  can 
steer  ships,  fell  forests,  remove  mountains; — it  is 
one  of  the  strongest  things  under  this  sun  at  present! 
In  the  history  of  Scotland  too,  I  can  find  properly 
but  one  epoch:  we  may  say,  it  contains  nothing  of 
world-interest  at  all  but  this  Reformation  by  Knox. 
A  poor  barren  country,  full  of  continual  broils,  dissen- 


LECT.   IV.  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  179 

sions,  massacreings;  a  people  in  the  last  state  of  rude- 
ness and  destitution,  little  better  perhaps  than  Ireland 
at  this  day.  Hungry  fierce  barons,  not  so  much  as  able 
to  form  any  arrangement  with  each  other  how  to  di- 
vide what  they  fleeced  from  these  poor  drudges? \but 
obliged,  as  the  Columbian  Republics  are  at  this  day, 
to  make  of  every  alteration  a  revolution;  no  way  of 
changing  a  ministry  but  by  hanging  the  old  minis- 
ters on  gibbets:  this  is  a  historical  spectacle  of  no 
very  singular  significance!  "Bravery"  enough,  I 
doubt  not;  fierce  fighting  in  abundance;  but  not 
braver  or  fiercer  than  that  of  their  old  Scandinavian 
Sea-king  ancestors;  ivhose  exploits  we  have  not 
found  worth  dwelling  on  !  It  is  a  country  as  yet 
without  a  soul;  nothing  developed  in  it  but  what  is 
rude,  external,  semi-animal.  And  now  at  the  Re- 
formation, the  internal  life  is  kindled,  as  it  were, 
under  the  ribs  of  this  outward  material  death.  A 
cause,  the  noblest  of  causes  kindles  itself,  like  a  bea- 
con set  on  high;  high  as  Heaven,  yet  attainable 
from  Earth;  whereby  the  meanest  man  becomes 
not  a  Citizen  only,  but  a  Member  of  Christ's  visible 
Church;  a  veritable  Hero,  if  he  prove  a  true  man  ! 
Well ;  this  is  what  I  mean  by  a  whole  "  nation  of 
heroes ;"  a  believing  nation.  There  needs  not  a  great 
soul  to  make  a  hero;  there  needs  a  god-created  soul 
to  be  true  to  its  origin ;  that  will  be  a  great  soul ! 
The  like  has  been  seen,  we  find.  The  like  will  be 
again  seen,  under  wider  forms  than  the  Presbyterian  : 
there  can  be  no  lasting  good  done  till  then. — Impos- 
sible! say  some.  Possible  ?  Has  it  not  been'm  this 
world,  as  a  practised  fact?  Did  Hero-worship  fail 
in  Knox's  case  ?  Or  are  we  made  of  other  clay  now  ? 
Did  the  Westminister  Confession  of  Faith  add  some 


ISO  THE    HERO  AS    PRIEST. 

new  property  to  the  soul  of  man?  God  made  the 
soul  of  man.  He  did  not  doom  any  soul  of  man 
to  live  as  a  Hypothesis  and  Hearsay,  in  a  world 
filled  with  such,  and  with  the  fatal  work  and  fruit  of 
such! — - — 

But  to  return:  This  that  Knox  did  for  his  Nation, 
1  say,  we  may  really  call  a  resurrection  as  from  death. 
It  was  not  a  smooth  business;  but  it  was  welcome 
surely,  and  cheap  at  that  price,  had  it  been  far 
rougher.  On  the  whole,  cheap  at  any  price: — as 
life  is.  The  people  began  to  live:  they  needed  first 
of  all  to  do  that,  at  what  cost  and  costs  soever. 
Scotch  Literature  and  Thought,  Scotch  Industry; 
James  Watt,  David  Hume,  Walter  Scott,  Robert 
Burns:  1  find  Knox  and  the  Reformation  acting  in 
the  heart's  core  of  every  one  of  these  persons  and 
phenomena;  I  find  that  without  the  Reformation 
they  would  not  have  been.  Or  what  of  Scotland? 
The  Puritanism  of  Scotland  became  that  of  England, 
of  New  England.  A  tumult  in  the  High  Church  of 
Edinburgh  spread  into  a  universal  battle  and  struggle 
over  all  these  realms; — there  came  out,  after  fifty 
years'  struggling,  what  we  all  call  the  "  Gloj^ious  Re- 
volution," a  Habeas-Corpus  Act,  Free  Parliaments, 
and  much  else! — Alas,  is  it  not  too  true  what  we 
said,  That  many  men  in  the  van  do  always,  like 
Russian  soldiers,  march  into  the  ditch  of  Schweidnitz, 
and  fill  it  up  with  their  dead  bodies,  that  the  rear 
may  pass  over  them  dry-shod,  and  gain  the  honour? 
How  many  earnest  rugged  Cromvvells,  Knoxes,  poor 
Peasant  Covenanters,  wrestling,  battling  for  very 
life,  in  rough  miry  places,  have  to  struggle,  and  suf- 
fer, and  fall,  greatly  censured,  bcmired, — before  a 
beautiful  Revolution  of  Eighty-eight  can  step  over 


LECT.   IV.  THE   HERO  AS  PRIEST.  181 

them  in  official  pumps  and  silk-stockings,  with  uni- 
versal three-times-three! 

It  seems  to  me  hard  measure  that  this  Scottish  man, 
now  after  three  hundred  years,  should  have  to  plead 
like  a  culprit  before  the  world;  intrinsically  for 
having  been,  in  such  way  as  it  was  then  possible  to  be, 
the  bravest  of  all  Scotchmen!  Had  he  been  a  poor 
Half-and-half,'he  could  have  crouched  into  the  cor- 
ner, like  so  many  others;  Scotland  had  not  been  de- 
livered; and  Knox  had  been  without  blame.  He  is 
the  one  Scotchman  to  whom,  of  all  others,  his  coun- 
try and  the  world  owe  a  debt.  He  has  to  plead  that 
Scotland  would  forgive  him  for  having  been  worth 
to  it  any  million  "unblameable  "  Scotchmen  that  need 
no  forgiveness!  He  bared  his  breast  to  the  battle; 
had  to  row  in  French  galleys,  wander  forlorn  in  exile, 
in  clouds  and  storms;  was  censured,  shot  at  through 
his  windows;  had  a  right  sore  fighting  life:  if  this 
world  were  his  place  of  recompense,  he  had  made 
but  a  bad  venture  of  it.  I  cannot  apologize  for 
Knox.  To  him  it  is  very  indifferent,  these  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  or  more,  what  men  say  of  him. 
But  we,  having  got  above  all  those  details  of  his  bat- 
tle, and  living  now  in  clearness  on  the  fruits  of  his 
victory,  we  for  our  own  sake  ought  to  look  through 
the  rumours  and  controversies  enveloping  the  man 
into  the  man  himself. 

For  one  thing,  I  will  remark  that  this  post  of  Pro? 
phet  to  his  Nation  was  not  of  his  seeking;  Knox 
had  lived  forty  years  quietly  obscure,  before  he  be- 
came conspicuous.  He  was  the  son  of  poor  parents; 
had  got  a  college  education;  became  a  Priest;  adopt- 
ed the  Reformation,  and  seemed  well  content  to  guide 
his  own  steps  by  the  light  of  it,  nowise  unduly  in 


1S2  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

truding  it  on  others.  He  had  lived  as  Tutor  in  gen- 
tlemen's families;  preaching  when  any  body  of  per- 
sons wished  to  hear  his  doctrine:  resolute  he  to  walk 
by  the  truth:  and  speak  the  truth  when  called  to  do 
it;  not  ambitious  of  more;  not  fancying  himself  ca- 
pable of  more.  In  this  entirely  obscure  way  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  forty;  was  with  the  small  body  of 
Reformers  who  were  standing  siege  in  St.  Andrew's 
Castle, — when  one  day  in  their  chapel,  the  Preacher 
after  finishing  his  exhortation  to  these  fighters  in  the 
forlorn  hope,  said  suddenly,  That  there  ought  to  be 
other  speakers,  that  all  men  who  had  a  priest's  heart 
and  gift  in  them  ought  now  to  speak; — which  gifts 
and  heart  one  of  their  own  number,  John  Knox  the 
name  of  him,  had:  Had  he  not?  said  the  Preacher 
appealing  to  all  the  audience:  What  then  is  his 
duty?  The  people  answered  affirmatively;  it  was 
a  criminal  forsaking  of  his  post,  if  such  a  man  held 
the  word  that  was  in  him  silent.  Poor  Knox  was 
obliged  to  stand  up;  he  attempted  to  reply:  he  could 
say  no  word; — burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  ran  out. 
It  is  worth  remembering,  that  scene.  He  was  in 
grievous  trouble  for  some  days.  He  felt  what  a  small 
faculty  was  his  for  this  great  work.  He  felt  what  a 
baptism  he  was  called  to  be  baptized  withal.  He 
"burst  into  tears." 

Our  primary  characteristic  of  a  Hero,  that  he  is 
sincere,  applies  emphatically  to  Knox.  It  is  not 
denied  any  where  that  this,  whatever  might  be  his 
other  qualities  or  faults,  is  among  the  truest  of  men. 
With  a  singular  instinct  he  holds  to  the  truth  and 
fact;  the  truth  alone  is  there  for  him,  the  rest  a  mere 
shadow  and  deceptive  nonentity.  However  feeble, 
forlorn  the  reality  may  seem,  on  that  and  that  only 


LECT.  IV.        THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  183 

can  he  take  his  stand.  In  the  Galleys  of  the  River 
Loire,  whither  Knox  and  the  others,  after  their  Castle 
of  St.  Andrews  was  taken,  had  been  sent  as  Galley 
slaves, — some  officer  or  priest,  one  day,  presented 
them  an  Image  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  requiring  that 
they,  the  blasphemous  heretics,  should  do  it  reve- 
rence. Mother?  Mother  of  God?  said  Knox,  when 
the  turn  came  to  him:  This  is  no  mother  of  God: 
this  is  "apented  bredd,"  —  &  piece  of  wood,  I  tell  you, 
with  paint  on  it.  She  is  fitter  for  swimming,  1  think, 
than  for  being  worshipped,  added  Knox:  and  flung 
the  thing  into  the  river.  It  was  not  very  cheap  jest- 
ing there:  but  come  of  it  what  might,  this  thing  to 
Knox  was  and  must  continue  nothing  other  than  the 
real  truth ;  it  was  a  pented  bredd:  worship  it  he  would 
not.  He  told  his  fellow-prisoners,  in  this  darkest 
time,  to  be  of  courage;  the  Cause  they  had  was  the 
true  one,  and  must  and  would  prosper;  the  whole 
world  could  not  put  it  down.  Reality  is  of  God's 
making;  it  is  alone  strong.  Kow  many  pented bredds, 
pretending  to  be  real,  are  fitter  to  swim  than  to  be 
worshipped! — This  Knox  cannot  live  but  by  fact: 
he  clings  to  reality  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor  to  the 
cliff.  He  is  an  instance  to  us  how  a  man,  by  since- 
rity itself,  becomes  heroic:  it  is  the  grand  gift  he  has. 
We  find  in  Knox  a  good  honest  intellectual  talent,  no 
transcendent  one; — a  narrow,  inconsiderable  man, 
as  compared  with  Luther:  but  in  heartfelt  instinctive 
adherence  to  truth,  in  sincerity,  as  we  say,  he  has  no 
superior;  nay,  one  might  ask,  What  equal  he  has? 
The  heart  of  him  is  of  the  true  Prophet  cast.  "He 
lies  there,"  said  the  Earl  of  Morton  at  his  grave, 
''who  never  feared  the  face  of  man."  He  resembles, 
more   than    any    of  the   moderns,   an    Old-Hebrew 


1S4  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

Prophet.  The  same  inflexibility,  intolerance,  rigid 
narrow-looking  adherence  to  God's  truth,  stern  re- 
buke in  the  name  of  God  to  all  that  forsake  truth:  an 
Old-Hebrew  Prophet  in  the  guise  of  an  Edinburgh 
Minister  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  We  are  to  take 
him  for  that;  not  require  him  to  be  other. 

Knox's  conduct  to  Queen  Mary,  the  harsh  visits  he 
used  to  make  in  her  own  palace,  to  reprove  her  there, 
have  been  much  commented  upon.  Such  cruelty, 
such  coarseness  fills  us  with  indignation.  On  read- 
ing the  actual  narrative  of  the  business,  what  Knox 
said,  and  what  Knox  meant,  I  must  say  one's  tragic 
feeling  is  rather  disappointed.  They  are  not  so 
coarse,  these  speeches;  they  seem  to  me  about  as 
fine  as  the  circumstances  would  permit!  Knox  was 
not  there  to  do  the  courtier;  he  came  on  another  er- 
rand. Whoever,  reading  these  colloquies  of  his  with 
the  Queen,  thinks  they  are  vulgar  insolences  of  a 
plebeian  priest  to  a  delicate  high  lady,  mistakes  the 
purport  and  essence  of  them  altogether.  It  was  un- 
fortunately not  possible  to  be  polite  with  the  Queen 
of  Scotland,  unless  one  proved  untrue  to  the  Nation 
and  cause  of  Scotland.  A  man  who  did  not  wish  to 
see  the  land  of  his  birth  made  a  hunting-field  for  in- 
triguing ambitious  Guises,  and  the  Cause  of  God 
trampled  under  loot  of  Falsehoods,  Formulas  and  the 
Devil's  Cause,  had  no  method  of  making  himself 
agreeable!  '"Better  that  women  weep,"  said  Mor- 
ton, "than  that  bearded  men  be  forced  to  weep." 
Knox  was  the  constitutional  opposition-party  in  Scot- 
land: the  Nobles  of  the  country,  called  by  their  sta- 
tion to  take  that  post,  were  not  found  in  it;  Knox 
had  to  go,  or  no  one.  The  hapless  Queen; — but  the 
still  more  hapless  Country  if  she  were  made  happy! 


LECT.  IV.       THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  185 

Mary  herself  was  not  without  sharpness  enough, 
among  her  other  qualities:  "  Who  are  you,"  said  she 
once,  il  that  presume  to  school  the  nobles  and  sove- 
reign of  this  realm?" — "Madam,  a  subject  born 
within  the  same,"  answered  he.  Reasonably  an- 
swered !  If  the  "  subject "  have  truth  to  speak,  it  is 
not  the  "  subject's  "  footing  that  will  fail  him  here. — 

We  blame  Knox  for  his  intolerance.  Well,  surely 
it  is  good  that  each  of  us  be  as  tolerant  as  possible. 
Yet  at  bottom,  after  all  the  talk  there  is  and  has  been 
about  it,  what  is  tolerance?  Tolerance  has  to  tole- 
rate the  inessential;  and  to  see  well  what  that  is. 
Tolerance  has  to  be  noble,  measured,  just  in  its  very 
wrath,  when  it  can  tolerate  no  longer:  But,  on  the 
whole,  we  are  not  altogether  here  to  tolerate!  We 
do  not  tolerate  Falsehoods,  Iniquities,  when  they 
fasten  on  us;  we  say  to  them,  Thou  art  false  and 
unjust!  We  are  here  to  extinguish  Falsehoods  in 
some  wise  way?  f  I  will  not  quarrel  so  much  with  the 
vvay;  the  doing  of  the  thing  is  our  great  concern.  In 
this  sense,  Knox  was,  full  surely,  intolerant. 

A  man  sent  to  row  in  French  Galleys,  and  such 
like,  for  teaching  the  truth  in  his  own  land,  cannot 
always  be  in  the  mildest  humour!  I  am  not  prepared 
to  say  that  Knox  had  a  soft  temper;  nor  do  I  know 
that  he  had  what  we  call  an  ill  temper.  An  ill  na- 
ture he  decidedly  had  not.  Kind  honest  affections 
dwelt  in  the  much-enduring,  hard-worn,  ever  battling 
man.  &  That  he  could  rebuke  Queens,  and  had  such 
weight  among  those  proud  turbulent  Nobles,  proud 
enough  whatever  else  they  were;  and  could  maintain 
to  the  end  a  kind  of  virtual  Presidency  and  Sovereign- 
ty in  that  wild  realm,  he  who  was  only  "a  subject 
born  within  the  same:"  this  of  itself  will  prove  to  us 
16 


18G  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

that  he  was  found,  close  at  hand,  to  be  no  mean  acrid 
man;  but  at  heart,  a  healthful,  strong,  sagacious 
man.  *  Such  alone  can  bear  rule  in  that  kind*  They 
blame  him  for  pulling  down  cathedrals,  and  so  forth, 
as  if  he  were  a  seditious,  rioting  demagogue:  precisely 
the  reverse  is  seen  to  be  the  fact,  in  regard  to  cathe- 
drals and  the  rest  of  it,  if  we  examine !  Knox  wanted 
no  pulling  down  of  stone  edifices;  he  wanted  leprosy 
and  darkness  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  lives  of  men. 
Tumult  was  not  his  element;  it  was  the  tragic  fea- 
ture of  his  life  that  he  was  forced  to  dwell. so  much 
in  that.  Every  such  man  is  the  born  enemy  of  Dis- 
order; hates  to  be  in  it:  but  what  then?  Smooth 
Falsehood  is  not  Order;  it  is  the  general  sum-total  of 
Disorder.  'Order  is  Truth, — each  thing  standing  on 
the  basis  that  belongs  to  it:  Order  and  Falsehood 
cannot  subsist  together. 

Withal,  unexpectedly  enough,  this  Knox  has  a 
vein  of  drollery  in  him;  which  I  like  much,  in  com- 
bination with  his  other  qualities.  He  has  a  true  eye 
for  the  ridiculous.  His  History,  with  its  rough  ear- 
nestness, is  curiously  enlivened  with  this.  When  the 
two  Prelates,  entering  Glasgow  Cathedral,  quarrel 
kbout precedence;  march  rapidly  up,  take  to  hustling 
one  another,  twitching  one  another's  rochets,  and  at  last 
flourishing  their  crosiers  like  quarter-staves,  it  is  a 
great  sight  for  him  every  way!  Not  mockery,  scorn, 
bitterness  alone;  though  there  is  enough  of  that  too. 
But  a  true,  loving,  illuminating  laugh  mounts  up  over 
the  earnest  visage;  not  a  loud  laugh;  you  would  sa}^, 
a  laugh  in  the  eyes  most  of  all.  An  honest-hearted, 
brotherly  man;  brother  to  the  high,  brother  also  to 
the  low;: sincere  in  his  sympathy  with  both?  He 
had  his  pipe  of  Bordeaux  too,  we  find,  in  that  old 


LECT.  IV.      THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST.  1S7 

Edinburgh  house  of  his;  a  cheery  social  man,  with 
faces  that  loved  him  !  They  go  far  wrong  who  think 
this  Knox  was  a  gloomy,  spasmodic,  shrieking  fana- 
tic. Not  at  all:  he  is  one  of  the  solidest  of  men. 
Practical,  cautious-hopeful,  patient;  a  most  shrewd, 
observing,  quietly  discerning  man.  In  fact,  he  has 
very  much  the  type  of  character  we  assign  to  the 
Scotch  at  present:  a  certain  sardonic  taciturnity  is 
in  him;  insight  enough;  and  a  stouter  heart  than 
he  himself  knows  of.  He  has  the  power  of  holding 
his  peace  over  many  things  which  do  not  vitally  con- 
cern him,—-"  They?  what  are  they?"  But  the  thing 
which  does  vitally  concern  him,  that  thing  he  will 
speak  of;  and  in  a  tone  the  whole  world  shall  be 
made  to  hear:  all  the  more  emphatic  for  his  long 
silence. 

This  Prophet  of  the  Scotch  is  to  me  no  hateful 
man! — He  had  a  sore  fight  of  an  existence;  wrest- 
ling with  Popes  and  Principalities;  in  defeat,  con- 
tention, life-long  struggle;  rowing  as  a  galley-slave, 
wandering  as  an  exile.  A  sore  fight:  but  he  won  it; 
"Have  you  hope?"  they  asked  him  in  his  last  mo- 
ment, when  he  could  no  longer  speak.  He  lifted 
his  finger,  "  pointed  upwards  with  his  finger,"  and  so 
died.  Honour  to  him.  His  works  have  not  died. 
The  letter  of  his  work  dies,  as  of  all  men's;  but  the 
spirit  of  it  never. 

One  word  more  as  to  the  letter  of  Knox's  work. 
The  unforgivable  offence  in  him  is,  that  he  wished 
to  set  up  Priests  over  the  head  of  Kings.-  In  other 
words,  he  strove  to  make  the  Government  of  Scotland 
a  Theocracy.  This  indeed  is  properly  the  sum  of  his 
offences;  the  essential  sin,  for  which  what  pardon 
can  there  be?     It  is  most  true,  he  did,  at  bottom, 


1SS  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST. 

consciously  or  unconsciously,  mean  a  Theocracy,  or 
Government  of  God.  He  did  mean  that  Kings  and 
Prime  Ministers,  and  all  manner  of  persons,  in  public 
or  private,  diplomatizing  or  whatever  else  they  might 
be  doing,  should  walk  according  to  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  and  understand  that  this  was  their  Law,  su- 
preme over  all  laws.  He  hoped  once  to  see  such  a 
thing  realized;  and  the  Petition,  Thy  Kingdom  come, 
no  longer  an  empty  word.  He  was  sore  grieved  when 
he  saw  greedy  worldly  Barons  clutch  hold  of  the 
Church's  property;  when  he  expostulated  that  it  was 
not  secular  property,  that  it  was  spiritual  property, 
and  should  be  turned  to  true  churchly  uses,  educa- 
tion, schools,  worship; — and  the  Regent  Murray  had 
to  answer,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  "It  is  a 
devout  imagination  V9  This  was  Knox's  scheme  of 
right  and  truth;  this  he  zealously  endeavoured  after, 
to  realize  it.  If  we  think  his  scheme  of  truth  was  too 
narrow,  was  not  true,  we  may  rejoice  that  he  could 
not  realize  it;  that  it  remained,  after  two  centuries 
of  effort,  unrealizable,  and  is  a  "  devout  imagination" 
still.  But  how  shall  we  blame  him  for  struggling  to 
realize  it?  Theocracy,  Government  of  God,  is  pre- 
cisely the  thing  to  be  struggled  for!  All  Prophets, 
zealous  priests,  are  there  for  that  purpose.  Hildebrand 
wished  a  Theocracy;  Cromwell  wished  it,  fought  for 
it;  Mahomet  attained  it.  Nay,  is  it  not  what  all 
zealous  men,  whether  called  Priests,  Prophets,  or 
whatsoever  else  called,  do  essentially  wish,  and  must 
wish  ?  That  right  and  truth,  our  God's  law,  reign  su- 
preme among  men,  this  is  the  Heavenly  Idea  (well- 
named  in  Knox's  time,  and  nameable  in  all  times,  a 
revealed  "  Will  of  God,")  towards  which  the  Reform- 
er will  insist  that  all  be  more  and  more  approximated. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  HERO   AS   PRIEST.  189 

All  true  Reformers,  as  1  said,  are  by  the  nature  of 
them  Priests,  and  strive  for  a  Theocracy.  .-. 

How  far  such  Ideals  can  ever  be  introduced  into 
Practice,  and  at  what  point  our  impatience  with  their 
non-introduction  ought  to  begin,  is  always  a  question. 
I  think  we  may  say  safely,  Let  them  introduce  them- 
selves as  far  as  they  can  contrive  to  do  it !  If  they 
are  the  true  faith  of  men,  all  men  ought  to  be  more 
or  less  impatient  always  where  they  are  not  found 
introduced.  There  will  never  be  wanting  Regent 
Murrays  enough  to  shrug  their  shoulders  and  say, 
"A  devout  imagination ! "  We  will  praise  the  Hero- 
Priest  rather,  who  does  what  is  in  him  to  bring  them 
in;  and  wears  out  in  toil,  calumny,  contradiction,  a 
noble  life,  to  make  a  God's  Kingdom  of  this  Earth, 
The  Earth  will  not  become  too  godlike  ! 


16 


LECTURE  V. 

[Tuesday,  19th   May,  1840.] 

THE    HERO    AS    MAN    OF    LETTERS. — JOHNSON,    ROUS- 
SEAU, BURNS. 

Hero-gods,  Prophets,  Poets,  Priests  are  forms  of 
Heroism  that  belong  to  the  old  ages,  make  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  remotest  times;  some  of  them  have 
ceased  to  be  possible  long  since,  and  cannot  any  more 
show  themselves  in  this  world.  The  Hero  as  Man 
cf  Letters,  again,  of  which  class  we  are  to  speak  to- 
day, is  altogether  a  product  of  these  new  ages;  and 
so  long  as  the  wondrous  art  of  Writing,  or  of  Ready- 
writing  which  we  call  Printing,  subsists,  he  may  be 
expected  to  continue,  as  one  of  the  main  forms  of 
Heroism  for  all  future  ages.  He  is,  in  various  re- 
spects, a  very  singular  phenomenon. 

He  is  new,  1  say;  he  has  hardly  lasted  above  a 
century  in  the  world  yet.  Never,  till  about  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  was  there  seen  any  figure  of  a  Great 
Soul  living  apart  in  that  anomalous  manner;  endea- 
vouring to  speak  forth  the  inspiration  that  was  in 
him  by  Printed  Books,  and  find  place  and  subsistence 
by  what  the  world  would  please  to  give  him  for  doing 
that.  Much  had  been  sold  and  bought,  and  left  to 
make  its  own  bargain  in  the  market-place;  but  the 
inspired  wisdom  of  a  Heroic  Soul  never  till  then,  in 
that  naked  manner.  He,  with  his  copy-rights  and 
copy-wrongs,  in  his  squalid  garret,  in  his  rusty  coat; 


LECT.  V.      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  191 

ruling  (for  this  is  what  he  does)  from  his  grave,  after 
death,  whole  nations  and  generations  who  would,  or 
would  not,  give  him  bread  while  living,— is  a  rather 
curious  spectacle!  Few  shapes  of  Heroism  can  be 
more  unexpected. 

Alas,  the  hero  from  of  old  has  had  to  cramp  him- 
self into  strange  shapes;  the  world  knows  not  well 
at  any  time  what  to  do  with  him,  so  foreign  is  his 
aspect  in  the  world!  It  seemed  absurd  to  us  that 
men,  in  their  ruc|,e  admiration,  should  take  some 
wise  great  Odin  for  a  god,  and  worship  him  as  such; 
some  wise  great  Mahomet  for  one  god-inspired,  and 
religiously  follow  his  Law  for  twelve  centuries:  but 
that  a  wise  great  Johnson,  a  Burns,  a  Rousseau, 
should  be  taken  for  some  idle  nondescript,  extant  in 
the  world  to  amuse  idleness,  and  have  a  few  coins 
and  applauses  thrown  him,  that  he  might  live  there- 
by; this  perhaps,  as  before  hinted,  will  one  day  seem 
a  still  absurder  phasis  of  things! — Meanwhile,  since 
it  is  the  spiritual  always  that  determines  the  mate- 
rial, this  same  Man-of-Letters  Hero  must  be  regarded 
as  our  most  important  modern  person.  He,  such  as 
he  may  be,  is  the  soul  of  all.  What  he  teaches,  the 
whole  world  will  do  and  make.  The  world's  manner 
of  dealing  with  him  is  the  most  significant  feature  of 
the  world's  general  position.  Looking  well  at  his 
life,  we  may  get  a  glance  as  deep  as  is  readily  possi- 
ble for  us  into  the  life  of  those  singular  centuries 
which  have  produced  him,  in  which  we  ourselves 
live  and  work. 

There  are  genuine  Men  of  Letters,  and  not  genuine; 
as  in  every  kind  there  is  a  genuine  and  a  spurious. 
If  Hero  be  taken  to  mean  genuine,  then  I  say  the 
Hero  as  Man  of  Letters  will  be  found  discharging  a 


192       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

function  for  us  which  is  ever  honourable,  ever  the 
highest;  and  was  once  well  known  to  be  the  highest. 
lie  is  uttering  forth,  in  such  way  as  he  has,  the  in- 
spired soul  of  him;  all  that  a  man,  in  any  case,  can 
do.  I  say  inspired;  for  what  we  call  "  originality," 
"sincerity,"  "genius,"  the  heroic  quality  we  have 
no  good  name  for,  signifies  that.  The  Hero  is  he 
who  lives  in  the  inward  sphere  of  things,  in  the 
True  Divine  and  Eternal,  which  exists  always,  un- 
seen to  most,  under  the  temporary,  Trivial:  his  be- 
ing is  in  that;  he  declares  that  abroad,  by  act  or 
speech  as  it  may  be,  in  declaring  himself  abroad. 
His  life,  as  we  said  before,  is  a  piece  of  the  ever- 
lasting heart  of  Nature  herself:  all  men's  life  is, — but 
the  weak  many  know  it  not,  in  most  times;  the 
strong  few  are  strong,  heroic,  perennial,  because  it 
cannot  be  hidden  from  them.  The  Man  of  Letters, 
like  every  Hero,  is  there  to  proclaim  this  in  such 
sort  as  he  can.  Intrinsically  it  is  the  same  function 
which  the  old  generations  named  a  man  Prophet, 
Priest,  Divinity  for  doing;  which  all  manner  of  He- 
roes, by  speech  or  by  act,  are  sent  into  the  world 
to  do. 

Fichte  the  German  Philosopher  delivered,  some 
forty  years  ago  at  Jena,  a  highly  remarkable  Course 
of  Lectures  on  this  subject:  "  Ueber  das  Wesen  des 
Gelehrten,  On  the  Nature  of  the  Literary  man." 
Fichte,  in  conformity  with  the  Transcendental  Phi- 
losophy, of  which  he  was  a  distinguished  teacher, 
declares  first,  that  all  things  which  we  see  or  work 
with  in  this  Earth,  especially  we  ourselves  and  all 
persons,  are  as  a  kind  of  vesture  or  sensuous  appear- 
ance; that  under  all  there  lies,  as  the  essence  of 
them,  what  he  calls  the  "  Divine  Idea  of  the  world;" 


LECT.  V.  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  193 

this  is  the  Reality  which  "  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all 
Appearance.7'  To  the  mass  of  men  no  such  Divine 
Idea  is  recognisable  in  the  world;  they  live  merely, 
says  Fichte,  among  the  superficialities,  practicalities 
and  shows  of  the  world,  not  dreaming  that  there  is 
any  thing  divine  under  them. 

But  the  Man  of  Letters  is  sent  hither  especially 
that  he  may  discern  for  himself,  and  make  manifest 
to  us,  this  same  Divine  Idea:  in  every  new  genera- 
tion it  will  manifest  itself  in  a  new  dialect;  and  he 
is  there  for  the  purpose  of  doing  that.  Such  is 
Fichte's  phraseology;  with  which  we  need  not 
quarrel.  It  is  his  way  of  naming  what  I  here,  by 
other  words,  am  striving  imperfectly  to  name;  what 
there  is  at  present  no  name  for:  The  unspeakable 
Divine  Significance,  full  of  splendour,  of  wonder 
and  terror,  that  lies  in  the  being  of  every  man,  of 
every  thing, — the  Presence  of  the  God  who  made 
every  man  and  thing.  Mahomet  taught  this  in 
his  dialect;  Odin  in  his:  it  is  the  thing  which  all 
thinking  hearts,  in  one  dialect  or  another,  are  here 
to  teach.  Fichte  calls  the  Man  of  Letters,  therefore, 
a  Prophet,  or  as  he  prefers  to  phrase  it,  a  Priest, 
continually  unfolding  the  Godlike  to  men;  Men  of 
Letters  are  a  perpetual  Priesthood,  from  age  to  age, 
teaching  all  men  that  a  God  is  still  present  in  their 
life;  that  all  "Appearance,"  whatsoever  we  see  in 
the  world,  is  but  as  a  vesture  for  the  "Divine  Idea  of 
the  World,"  for  "that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
Appearance."  In  the  true  Literary  Man  there  is  thus 
ever,  acknowledged  or  not  by  the  world,  a  sacred- 
ness :  he  is  the  light  of  the  world;  the  world's  Priest; 
— guiding  it,  like  a  sacred  Pillar  of  Fire,  in  its  dark 
pilgrimage  through  the  waste  of  Time.     Fichte  dis- 


194  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

criminates  with  sharp  zeal  the  true  Literary  Man, 
what  we  here  call  the  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,  from 
multitudes  of  false  unheroic.  Whoever  lives  not 
wholly  in  this  Divine  Idea,  or  living  partially  in  it, 
struggles  not,  as  for  the  one  good,  to  live  wholly  in 
it, — he  is,  let  him  live  where  else  he  like,  in  what 
pomps  and  prosperities  he  like,  no  Literary  Man; 
he  is,  says  Fichte,  a  "Bungler,  Stumper"  Or  at  best, 
if  he  belong  to  the  prosaic  provinces,  he  may  be  a 
"Hodman:"  Fichte  even  calls  him  elsewhere  a 
' Nonentity,"  and  has  in  short  no  mercy  for  him,  no 
wish  that  he  should  continue  happy  among  us! 
This  is  Fichte's  notion  of  the  Man  of  Letters.  It 
means,  in  its  own  form,  precisely  what  we  here 
mean. 

In  this  point  of  view,  I  consider  that,  for  the  last 
hundred  years  by  far  the  notablest  of  all  Literary  Men 
is  Fichte's  countryman  Goethe.  To  that  man  too, 
in  a  strange  way,  there  was  given  what  we  may  call 
a  life  in  the  Divine  Idea  of  the  World;  vision  of  the 
inward  divine  mystery:  and  strangely,  out  of  his 
Books,  the  world  rises  imaged  once  more  as  godlike, 
the  workmanship  and  temple  of  a  God.  Illuminated 
all,  not  in  fierce  impure  fire-splendour  as  of  Mahomet, 
but  in  mild  celestial  radiance; — really  a  prophecy 
in  these  most  unprophetic  times;  to  my  mind,  by 
far  the  greatest,  though  one  of  the  quietest,  among 
all  the  great  things  that  have  come  to  pass  in  them! 
Our  chosen  specimen  of  the  Hero  as  Literary  Man 
would  be  this  Goethe.  And  it  were  a  very  pleasant 
plan  for  me  here,  to  discourse  of  his  heroism :  for  I 
consider  him  to  be  a  true  Hero;  heroic  in  what  he 
said  and  did,  and  perhaps  still  more  heroic  in  what 
he  did  not  say  and  did  not  do;  to  me  a  noble  spec- 


LECT.  V.  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.       195 

tacle:  a  great  heroic  ancient  man,  speaking  and 
keeping  silence  as  an  ancient  Hero,  in  the  guise  of 
a  most  modern,  high-bred,  high-cultivated  Man  of 
Letters!  We  have  had  no  such  spectacle;  no  man 
capable  of  affording  such,  for  the  last  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  But  at  present,  such  is  the  general  state 
of  knowledge  about  Goethe,  it  were  worse  than  use- 
less to  attempt  speaking  of  him  in  this  case.  Speak 
as  I  might,  Goethe,  to  a  great  majority  of  you, 
would  remain  problematic,  vague;  no  impression  but 
a  false  one  could  be  realized.  Him  we  must  leave 
to  future  times.  Johnson,  Burns,  Rousseau,  three 
great  figures  from  a  prior  time,  from  a  far  inferior 
state  of  circumstance,  will  suit  us  better  here.  Three 
men  of  the  Eighteenth  Century;  the  conditions  of 
their  life  far  more  resemble  what  those  of  ours  still  are 
in  England,  than  what  Goethe's  in  Germany  were. 
Alas,  these  men  did  not  conquer  like  him;  they 
fought  bravely,  and  fell.  They  were  not  heroic 
bringers  of  the  light,  but  heroic  seekers  of  it.  They 
lived  under  galling  conditions;  struggling  as  under 
mountains  of  impediment,  and  could  not  unfold 
themselves  into  clearness,  victorious  interpretation 
of  that "  Divine  Idea."  It  is  rather  the  Tombs  of  three 
Literary  Heroes  that  I  have  to  show  you.  These 
are  the  monumental  heaps,  under  which  three 
spiritual  giants  lie  buried.  Very  mournful,  but  also 
great  and  full  of  interest  for  us.  We  will  linger  by 
them  for  a  while. 

Complaint  is  often  made,  in  these  times,  of  what 
we  call  the  disorganized  condition  of  society;  how 
ill  many  arranged  forces  of  society  fulfil  their  work; 
how  many  powerful  forces  are   seen  working  in  a 


196       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

wasteful,  chaotic,  altogether  unarranged  manner. 
It  is  too  just  a  complaint,  as  we  all  know.  But 
perhaps  if  we  look  at  this  of  Books  and  the  Writers 
of  Books,  we  shall  find  here,  as  it  were,  the  summary 
of  all  other  disorganization: — a  sort  of  heart,  from 
which  and  to  which  all  other  confusion  circulates  in 
the  world !  Considering  what  Book-writers  do  in  the 
world,  and  what  the  world  does  with  Book-writers,  I 
should  say,  It  is  the  most  anomalous  thing  the  world 
at  present  has  to  show. — We  should  get  into  a  sea 
far  beyond  sounding,  did  we  attempt  to  give  account 
of  this:  but  we  must  glance  at  it  for  the  sake  of  our 
subject.  The  worst  element  in  the  life  of  these  three 
Literary  Heroes  was,  that  they  found  their  business 
and  position  such  a  chaos.  On  the  beaten  road 
there  is  tolerable  travelling;  but  it  is  sore  work,  and 
many  have  to  perish,  fashioning  a  path  through  the 
impassable! 

Our  pious  Fathers,  feeling  well  what  importance 
lay  in  the  speaking  of  man  to  men,  founded  churches, 
made  endowments,  regulations;  every  where  in  the 
civilized  world  there  is  a  Pulpit,  environed  with  all 
manner  of  complex  dignified  appurtenances  and  fur- 
therances, that  therefrom  a  man  with  the  tongue 
may,  to  best  advantage,  address  his  fellow-men. 
They  felt  that  this  was  the  most  important  thing; 
that  without  this  there  was  no  good  thing.  It  is  a 
right  pious  work  that  of  theirs ;  beautiful  to  behold! 
But  now  with  the  art  of  Writing,  with  the  art  of 
Printing,  a  total  change  has  come  over  that  busi- 
ness. The  Writer  of  a  Book,  is  not  he  a  preacher 
preaching,  not  to  this  parish  or  that,  on  this  day  or 
that,  but  to  all  men  in  all  times  and  places?  Surely 
it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  he  do  his  work  right. 


LECT.  V.  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  197 

whoever  do  it  wrong; — that  the  eye  report  not  falsely, 
for  then  all  the  other  members  are  astray !  Well, 
how  he  may  do  his  work,  whether  he  do  it  right  or 
wrong,  or  do  it  all,  is  a  point  which  no  man  in  the 
world  has  taken  the  pains  to  think  of.  To  a  certain 
shop-keeper,  trying  to  get  some  money  for  his  books, 
if  lucky,  he  is  of  some  importance  ;  to  no  other  man 
of  any.  Whence  he  came,  whither  he  is  bound,  by 
what  ways  he  arrived,  by  what  he  might  be  furthered 
on  his  course,  no  one  asks. j  He  is  an  accident  in 
society.  He  wanders  like  a  wild  Ishmaelite,  in  a 
world  of  which  he  is  as  the  spiritual  light,  either  the 
guidance  or  the  misguidance  ! 

Certainly  the  Art  of  Writing  is  the  most  miraculous 
of  all  things  man  has  devised.  Odin's  Runes  were 
the  first  form  of  the  work  of  a  Hero;  Books,  written 
words,  are  still  miraculous  Runes,  the  latest  form! 
In  Books  lies  the  soul  of  the  whole  Past  time;  the 
articulate  audible  voice  of  the  Past,  when  the  body 
and  material  substance  of  it  has  altogether  vanished 
like  a  dream.  Mighty  fleets  and  armies,  harbours  and 
arsenals,  vast  cities,  high-domed,  many-engined, — 
they  are  precious,  great:  but  what  do  they  become? 
Agamemnon,  the  many  Agamemnons,  Pericleses, 
and  their  Greece;  all  is  gone  now  to  some  ruined 
fragments,  dumb  mournful  wrecks  and  blocks:  but 
the  Books  of  Greece!  There  Greece,  to  every  thinker, 
still  very  literally  lives;  can  be  called  up  again  into 
life.  No  magic  Rune  is  stranger  than  a  Book.  All 
that  Mankind  has  done,  thought,  gained  or  been:  it 
is  lying  as  in  magic  preservation  in  the  pages  of 
Books.     They  are  the  chosen  possession  of  men. 

Do  not  Books  still  accomplish  miracles,  as  Runes 
were  fabled  to  do  ?     They  persuade  men.     Not  the 
17 


198       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

wretcheclest  circulating-library  novel,  which  foolish 
girls  thumb  and  con  in  remote  villages,  but  will  help 
to  regulate  the  actual  practical  weddings  and  house- 
holds of  those  foolish  girls.  So  "Celia"  felt,  so  "  Clif- 
ford "  acted:  the  foolish  Theorem  of  Life,  stamped 
into  those  young  brains,  comes  out  as  a  solid  Prac- 
tice one  day <*  Consider  whether  any  Rune  in  the 
wildest  imagination  of  Mythologist  ever  did  such 
wonders  as,  on  the  actual  firm  Earth,  some  Books  have 
done!  What  built  St.  Paul's  Cathedral?  Look  at  the 
heart  of  the  matter,  it  was  that  divine  Hebrew  Book, 
— the  word  partly  of  the  man  Moses,  an  outlaw  tend- 
ing his  Midianitish  herds,  four  thousand  years  ago  in 
the  wilderness  of  Sinai !  It  is  the  strangest  of  things, 
yet  nothing  is  truer.  With  the  art  of  Writing,  of 
which  Printing  is  a  simple,  an  inevitable  and  com- 
paratively insignificant  corollary,  the  true  reign  of 
miracles  for  mankind  commenced.  It  related,  with  a 
wondrous  new  contiguity  and  perpetual  closeness,  the 
Past  and  Distant  with  the  Present  in  time  and  place; 
all  times  and  all  places  with  this  our  actual  Here  and 
Now.  All  things  were  altered  for  men;  all  modes  of 
important  work  of  men  :  teaching,  preaching,  govern- 
ing, and  all  else. 

To  look  at  Teaching,  for  instance.  Universities 
are  a  notable,  respectable  product  of  the  modern  ages. 
Their  existence  too  is  modified,  to  the  very  basis  of 
it,  by  the  existence  of  Books.  Universities  arose 
while  there  were  yet  no  Books  procurable;  while  a 
man,  for  a  single  Book,  had  to  give  an  estate  of  land. 
That,  in  those  circumstances,  when  a  man  had  some 
knowledge  to  communicate,  he  should  do  it  by  gather- 
ing the  learners  round  him,  face  to  face,  was  a  neces- 
sity for  him.     If  you  wanted  to  know  what  Abelard 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  199 

knew,  you  must  go  and  listen  to  Abelard.  Thousands, 
as  many  as  thirty  thousand,  went  to  hear  Abelard,  and 
that  metaphysical  theology  of  his.  <  And  now  for  any 
other  teacher  who  had  also  something  of  his  own  to 
teach,  there  was  a  great  convenience  opened :  so  many 
thousands  eager  to  learn  were  already  assembled 
yonder;  of  all  places  the  best  place  for  him  was  that. 
For  any  third  teacher  it  was  better  still;  and  grew 
ever  the  better,  the  more  teachers  there  came.  It 
only  needed  now  that  the  King  took  notice  of  this 
new  phenomenon;  combined  or  agglomerated  the 
various  schools  into  one  school;  gave  it  edifices,  pri- 
vileges, encouragements,  and  named  it  Universitas, 
or  School  of  all  sciences:  the  University  of  Paris  in 
its  essential  characters  was  there.  The  model  of  all 
subsequent  Universities;  which  down  even  to  these 
days,  for  six  centuries  now,  have  gone  on  to  found 
themselves.  Such,  I  conceive,  was  the  origin  of 
Universities. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  with  this  simple  circum- 
stance, facility  of  getting  Books,  the  whole  conditions 
of  the  business  from  top  to  bottom  were  changed. 
Once  invent  Printing,  you  metamorphosed  all  Uni- 
versities, or  superseded  them!  The  teacher  needed 
not  now  to  gather  men  personally  round  him,  that  he 
might  speak  to  them  what  he  knew:  print  it  in  a 
Book,  and  all  learners  far  and  wide,  for  a  trifle,  had 
it  each  at  his  own  fireside,  much  more  effectually  to 
learn  it! — Doubtless  there  is  still  peculiar  virtue  in 
speech;  even  writers  of  Books  may  still,  in  some 
circumstances,  find  it  convenient  to  speak  also, — 
Witness  our  present  meeting  here!  There  is,  one 
would  say,  and  must  ever  remain  while  man  has  a 
tongue,  a  distinct  province  for  Speech  as  well  as  for 


200  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

Writing  and  Printing.  In  regard  to  all  things  this 
must  remain;  to  Universities  among  others.  But  the 
limits  of  the  two  have  no  where  yet  been  pointed  out, 
ascertained;  much  less  put  in  practice:  the  Univer- 
sity which  would  completely  take  in  that  great  new 
fact,  of  the  existence  of  Printed  Books,  and  stand  on 
a  clear  footing  for  the  Nineteenth  Century,  as  the 
Paris  one  did  for  the  Thirteenth,  has  not  yet  come 
into  existence.  If  we  think  of  it,  all  that  a  Univer- 
sity or  final  highest  School  can  do  for  us,  is  still  but 
what  the  first  School  began  doing, — teach  us  to  read. 
We  learn  to  read,  in  various  languages,  in  various 
sciences;  we  learn  the  alphabet  and  letters  of  all 
manner  of  Books.  But  the  place  where  we  are  to  get 
knowledge,  even  theoretic  knowledge,  is  the  Books 
themselves !  It  depends  on  what  we  read,  after  all 
manner  of  Professors  have  done  their  best  for  us.  The 
true  University  of  these  days  is  a  collection  of  Books. 
But  to  the  Church  itself,  as  I  hinted  already,  all  is 
changed,  in  its  preaching,  in  its  working,  by  the  intro- 
duction of  Books.  The  Church  is  the  working  recog- 
nised Union  of  ourPriestsorProphets,orthose  whoby 
wise  teaching  guide  the  souls  of  men.  While  there  was 
no  Writing,  even  while  there  was  no  Easy-writing, 
or  Printing,  the  preaching  of  the  voice  was  the  natu- 
ral sole  method  of  performing  this.  But  now  with 
Books! — He  that  can  write  a  true  Book,  to  persuade 
England,  is  not  he  the  Bishop  and  Archbishop,  the 
Primate  of  England  and  of  all  England  ?  I  many 
a  time  say,  the  writers  of  Newspapers,  Pamphlets, 
Poems,  Books,  these  are  the  real  working  effective 
Church  of  a  modern  country.  Nay,  not  only  our 
preaching,  but  even  our  worship,  is  not  it  too  ac- 
complished by  means  of  Printed  Books?     The  noble 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  201 

sentiment  which  a  gifted  soul  has  clothed  for  us  in 
melodious  words,  which  brings  melody  into  our  hearts^ 
— is  not  this  essentially,  if  we  will  understand  it,  of 
the  nature  of  worship?  There  are  many,  in  all 
countries,  who,  in  this  confused  time,  have  no  other 
method  of  worship.  He  who,  in  any  way,  shows  us 
better  than  we  knew  before  that  a  lily  of  the  fields 
is  beautiful,  does  he  not  show  it  us  as  an  effluence 
of  the  Fountain  of  all  Beauty;  as  the  handwriting, 
made  visible  there,  of  the  great  Maker  of  the  Uni- 
verse? He  has  sung  for  us,  made  us  sing  with  him, 
a  little  verse  of  a  sacred  Psalm.  Essentially  so. 
How  much  more  he  who  sings,  who  says,  or  in  any 
way  brings  home  to  our  heart  the  noble  doings,  feel- 
ings, darings  and  endurances  of  a  brother  man!  He 
has  verily  touched  our  hearts  as  with  a  live  coal  from 
the  altar.  Perhaps  there  is  no  worship  more  authen- 
tic. Literature,  so  far  as  it  is  Literature,  is  an  "apo- 
calypse of  Nature,"  a  revealing  of  the  "  open  secret." 
It  may  well  enough  be  named,  in  Fichte's  style,  a 
"continuous  revelation"  of  the  Godlike  in  the  Ter- 
restrial and  Common.  The  Godlike  does  ever,  in 
very  truth,  endure  there;  is  brought  out,  now  in  this 
dialect,  now  in  that,  with  various  degrees  of  clear- 
ness: all  true  gifted  Singers  and  Speakers  are,  con- 
sciously, or  unconsciously,  doing  so.-  The  dark  storm- 
ful  indignation  of  a  Byron,  so  wayward  and  perverse, 
may  have  touches  of  it;'  nay,  the  withered  mockery 
of  a  French  skeptic, — his  mockery  of  the  False,  a 
love  and  worship  of  the  True.  How  much  more  the 
sphere-harmony  of  a  Shakspeare,  of  a  Goethe;  the 
cathedral  music  of  a  Milton;  the  humble  genuine 
lark-notes  of  a  Burns, — skylark,  starting  from  the 
humble  furrow,  far  overhead  in  the  blue  depths, 
17* 


202       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

and  singing  to  us  so  genuinely  there  !  lT  Fragments 
of  a  real  "Church  Liturgy  "  and  "body  of  Homilies,'' 
strangely  disguised  from  the  common  eye,  are  to  be 
found  weltering  in  that  huge  froth-ocean  of  Printed 
Speech  we  loosely  call  Literature !  Books  are  our 
Church  too. 

Or  turning  now  to  the  Government  of  men.  Witen- 
agemote,  old  Parliament,  was  a  great  thing.  The 
affairs  of  the  nation  were  there  deliberated  and  de- 
cided; what  we  were  to  do  as  a  nation.  But  does 
not,  though  the  name  Parliament  subsists,  the  par- 
liamentary debate  go  on  now,  every  where  and  at 
all  times,  in  a  far  more  comprehensive  way,  out  of 
Parliament  altogether?  Burke  said  there  were  Three 
Estates  in  Parliament;  but,  in  the  Reporters'  Galle- 
ry yonder,  there  sat  a  Fourth  Estate  more  important 
far  than  they  all.  It  is  not  a  figure  of  speech,  or  a 
witty  saying;  it  is  a  literal  fact, — very  momentous 
to  us  in  these  times.  Literature  is  our  Parliament 
too.  Printing,  which  comes  necessarily  out  of  Writ- 
ing, I  say  often,  is  equivalent  to  Democracy:  invent 
Writing,  Democracy  is  inevitable.  Writing  brings 
Printing:  brings  universal  every-day  extempore 
Printing,  as  we  see  at  present.  Whoever  can  speak, 
speaking  now  to  the  whole  nation,  becomes  a  power, 
a  branch  of  government,  with  inalienable  weight  in 
law  making,  in  all  acts  of  authority.  It  matters  not 
what  rank  he  has,  what  revenues  or  garnitures:  the 
requisite  thing  is,  that  he  have  a  tongue  which  others 
will  listen  to;  this  and  nothing  more  is  requisite. 
The  nation  is  governed  by  all  that  has  tongue  in  the 
nation:  Democracy  is  virtually  there.  Add  only 
that  whatsoever  power  exists  will  have  itself  by  and 
by  organized;  working  secretly  under  bandages,  ob- 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.  203 

scurations,  obstructions,  it  will  never  rest  till  it  get 
to  work  free,  unencumbered,  visible  to  all;  Demo- 
cracy virtually  extant  will  insist  on  becoming  pal- 
pably extant. 

On  all  sides,  are  we  not  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that,  of  the  things  which  man  can  do  or  make 
here  below,  by  far  the  most  momentous,  won- 
derful and  worthy  are  the  things  we  call  books! 
Those  poor  bits  of  rag  paper  with  black  ink  on  them; 
— from  the  Daily  Newspaper  to  the  sacred  Hebrew 
Book,  what  have  they  not  done,  what  are  they  not 
doing! — For  indeed,  whatever  be  the  outward  form 
of  the  thing,  (bits  of  paper,  as  we  say,  and  black 
ink,)  is  it  not  verily,  at  bottom,  the  highest  act  of 
man's  faculty  that  produces  a  Book?  It  is  the 
Thought  of  man;  the  true  thaumaturgic  virtue;  by 
which  man  works  all  things  whatsoever.!  All  that 
he  does,  and  brings  to  pass,  is  the  vesture  of  a  Thought. 
This  London  City,  with  all  its  houses,  palaces,  steam- 
engines,  cathedrals,  and  huge  immeasurable  traffic 
and  tumult,  what  is  it  but  a  Thought,  but  millions 
of  Thoughts  made  into  One; — a  huge  immeasurable 
Spirit  of  a  Thought,  imbodied  in  brick,  in  iron, 
smoke  dust,  Palaces,  Parliaments,  Hackney  Coaches, 
Katharine  Docks,  and  the  rest  of  it !  Not  a  brick 
was  made  but  some  man  had  to  think  of  the  making 
of  that  brick.  The  thing  we  called  "bits  of  paper 
with  traces  of  black  ink,"  is  the  purest  imbodiment 
a  Thought  of  man  can  have.  No  wonder  it  is,  in  all 
ways,  the  activest  and  noblest. 

All  this,  of  the  importance  and  supreme  impor- 
tance of  the  Man  of  Letters  in  modern  Society,  and 
how  the  press  is  to  such  a  degree  superseding  the 
Pulpit,  the  Senate,  the  Senatus  Jlcademicus and  much 


204       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

else,  has  been  admitted  for  a  good  while;  and  recog- 
nised often  enough,  in  late  times,  with  a  sort  of  sen- 
timental triumph  and  wonderment.  It  seems  to  me, 
the  Sentimental  by  and  by  will  have  to  give  place 
to  the  Practical.  If  Men  of  Letters  are  so  incalcu- 
lably influential,  actually  performing  such  work  for 
us  from  age  to  age,  and  even  from  day  to  day,  then 
I  think  we  may  conclude  that  Men  of  Letters  will 
not  always  wander  like  unrecognised  unregulated 
lshmaelites  among  us!  Whatsoever  thing,  as  I  said 
above,  has  virtual  unnoticed  power  will  cast  off  its 
wrappages,  bandages,  and  step  forth  one  day  with 
palpably  articulated,  universally  visible  power.* 
That  one  man  wear  the  clothes,  and  take  the  wages, 
of  a  function  which  is  done  by  quite  another;  there 
can  be  no  profit  in  this;  this  is  not  right,  it  is  wrong. 
And  yet,  alas,  the  making  of  it  right, — what  a  busi- 
ness, for  long  times  to  come!  Sure  enough,  this  that 
we  call  Organization  of  the  Literary  Guild  is  still  a 
great  way  off,  encumbered  with  all  manner  of  com- 
plexities. If  you  asked  me  what  were  the  best  pos- 
sible organization  for  the  Men  of  Letters  in  modern 
society;  the  arrangement,  of  furtherance  and  regu- 
lation, grounded  the  most  accurately  on  the  actual 
facts  of  their  position  and  of  the  world's  position, 
— I  should  beg  to  say  that  the  problem  far  exceed- 
ed my  faculty!  It  is  not  one  man's  faculty;  it  is 
that  of  many  successive  men  turned  earnestly  upon 
it,  that  will  bring  out  even  an  approximate  solution. 
What  the  best  arrangement  were,  none  of  us  could 
say.  But  if  you  ask,  Which  is  the  worst?  I  an- 
swer: This  which  we  now  have,  that  Chaos  should 
sit  umpire  in  it;  this  is  the  worst.  To  the  best,  or 
any  good  one,  there  is  yet  a  long  way. 


LECT.  V.     THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  205 

One  remark  I  must  not  omit,  That  royal  or  parlia- 
mentary grants  of  money  are  by  no  means  the  chief 
thing  wanted !  To  give  our  Men  of  Letters  stipends, 
endowments,  and  all  furtherance  of  cash,  will  do 
little  towards  the  business.  On  the  whole,  one  is 
weary  of  hearing  about  the  omnipotence  of  money. 
I  will  say  rather  that,  for  a  genuine  man,  it  is  no  evil 
to  be  poor;  that  there  ought  to  be  Literary  Men 
poor,— to  show  whether  they  are  genuine  or  not! 
Mendicant  Orders,  bodies  of  good  men  doomed  to 
beg,  were  instituted  in  the  Christian  Church:  a  most 
natural  and  even  necessary  development  of  the 
spirit  of  Christianity.  It  was  itself  founded  on  Po- 
verty, on  Sorrow,  Contradiction,  Crucifixion,  every 
species  of  worldly  Distress  and  Degradation.//  We 
may  say  that  he  who  has  not  known  those  things, 
and  learned  from  them  the  priceless  lessons  they 
have  to  teach,  has  missed  a  good  opportunity  of 
schooling.//  To  beg  and  go  barefoot,  in  coarse  woollen 
cloak  with  a  rope  round  your  loins,  and  be  despised 
of  all  the  world,  was  no  beautiful  business; — nor  an 
honourable  one  in  any  eye,  till  the  nobleness  of  those 
who  did  so  had  made  it  honoured  of  some!  Beg- 
ging is  not  in  our  course  at  the  present  time :  but 
for  the  rest  of  it,  who  will  say  that  a  Johnson  is  not 
perhaps  the  better  for  being  poor?  It  is  needful  for 
him,  at  all  rates  to  know  that  outward  profit,  that 
success  of  any  kind  is  not  the  goal  he  has  to  aim  at. 
Pride,  vanity,  ill-conditioned  egotism  of  all  sorts,  are 
bred  in  his  heart,  as  in  every  heart;  need,  above  all, 
to  be  cast  out  of  his  heart, — to  be,  with  whatever 
pangs,  torn  out  of  it,  cast  forth  from  it,  as  a  thing 
worthless.  Byron,  born  rich  and  noble,  made  out 
even  less  than  Burns,  poor  and  Plebeian:  Who  knows 


206  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

but  in  that  same  "best  possible  organization  "  as  yet 
far  off,  Poverty  may  still  enter  as  an  important  ele- 
ment? What  if  our  Men  of  Letters,  men  setting  up 
to  be  Spiritual  Heroes,  were  still  then,  as  they  now 
are,  a  kind  of  "  involuntary  monastic  order;"  bound 
still  to  this  same  ugly  poverty, — till  they  had  tried 
what  was  in  it  too,  till  they  had  learned  to  make  it, 
too,  do  for  them !  Money,  in  truth,  can  do  much,  but 
it  cannot  do  all.  We  must  know  the  province  of 
it,  and  confine  it  there;  and  even  spurn  it  back,  when 
it  wishes  to  get  farther. 

Besides,  were  the  money-furtherances,  the  proper 
season  for  them,  the  fit  assigner  of  them,  all  settled, 
how  is  the  Burns  to  be  recognised  that  merits  these; 
He  must  pass  through  the  ordeal  and  prove  himself, 
This  ordeal;  this  wild  welter  of  a  chaos  which  is 
called  Literary  life:  this  too  is  a  kind  of  ordeal! 
There  is  clear  truth  in  the  idea  that  a  struggle  from 
the  lower  classes  of  society,  toward  the  upper  regions 
and  rewards  of  society,  must  ever  continue.  Strong 
men  are  born  there,  who  ought  to  stand  elsewhere 
than  there.  The  manifold  inextricably  complex, 
universal  struggle  of  these  constitutes,  and  must 
constitute,  what  is  called  the  progress  of  society. 
For  Men  of  Letters,  as  for  all  other  sorts  of  men. 
How  to  regulate  that  struggle?  There  is  the  whole 
question.  To  leave  it  as  it  is,  at  the  mercy  of  blind 
Chance;  a  whirl  of  distracted  atoms,  one  cancelling 
the  other;  one  of  the  thousand  arriving  saved,  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  lost  by  the  way;  your  royal 
Johnson  languishing  inactive  in  garrets,  or  harnessed 
to  the  yoke  of  Printer  Cave,  your  Burns  dying  bro- 
ken-hearted as  a  Gauger,  your  Rousseau  driven  into 
mad  exasperation,  kindling  French  Revolutions  by 


LECT.  V.   THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.       207 

his  paradoxes:  this,  as  we  said,  is  clearly  enough  the 
tvorst  regulation.     The  best,  alas,  is  far  from  us! 

And  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  it  is  coming; 
advancing  on  us,  as  yet  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  centu- 
ries: this  is  a  prophecy  one  can  risk.  For  so  soon 
as  men  get  to  discern  the  importance  of  a  thing, 
they  do  infallibly  set  about  arranging  it,  facilitating, 
forwarding  it;  and  rest  not  till,  in  some  approximate 
degree,  they  have  accomplished  that.  I  say,  of  all 
Priesthoods,  Aristocracies,  Governing  Classes  at  pre- 
sent extant  in  the  world,  there  is  no  class  compara- 
ble for  importance  to  that  Priesthood  of  the  Writers 
of  Books.  This  is  a  fact  which  he  who  runs  may 
read, — and  draw  inferences  from.  "Literature  will 
take  care  of  itself,"  answered  Mr.  Pitt,  when  applied 
to  for  some  help  for  Burns.  "  Yes/'  answers  Mr. 
Southey,  "it  will  take  care  of  itself;  and  of  yon  too, 
if  you  do  not  look  to  it!" 

The  result  to  individual  Men  of  Letters  is  not  the 
momentous  one;  they  are  but  individuals,  an  infinite- 
simal fraction  of  the  great  body;  they  can  struggle 
on,  and  live  or  else  die,  as  they  have  been  wont. 
But  it  deeply  concerns  the  whole  society,  whether 
it  will  set  its  light  on  high  places,  to  walk  thereby; 
or  trample  it  under  foot,  and  scatter  it  in  all  ways  of 
wild  waste  (not  without  conflagration,)  as  hereto- 
fore! Light  is  the  one  thing  wanted  for  the  world. 
Put  wisdom  in  the  head  of  the  world,  it  will  fight  its 
battle  victoriously,  and  be  the  best  world  man  can 
make  it.  I  called  this  anomaly  of  a  disorganic 
Literary  Class  the  heart  of  all  other  anomalies,  at 
once  product  and  parent;  some  good  arrangement 
for  that  would  be  as  the  punctum  saliens  of  a  new 
vitality  and  just  arrangement  for  all.     Already,  in 


208  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

some  European  countries,  in  France,  in  Prussia,  one 
traces  some  beginnings  of  an  arrangement  for  the 
Literary  Class;  indicating  the  gradual  possibility  of 
such.  I  believe  that  it  is  possible;  that  it  will  have 
to  be  possible. 

By  far  the-  most  interesting  fact  I  hear  about  the 
Chinese  is  one  of  which  we  cannot  arrive  at  clear- 
ness, but  which  excites  endless  curiosity  even  in  the 
dim  state:  this,  namely,  that  they  do  attempt  to  make 
their  Men  of  letters  their  Governors!     It  would  be 
rash  to  say,  one  understood  how  this  was  done,  or 
with  what  degree  of  success  it  was  done.     All  such 
things  must  be  very  unsuccessful;  yet  a  small  degree 
of  success  is  precious ;  the  very  attempt  how  precious ! 
There  does  seem  to  be,  all  over  China,  a  more  or 
less  active  search  every  where  to  discover  the  men  of 
talent  that  grow  up  in  the  young  generation.    Schools 
there  are  for  every  one :  a  foolish  sort  of  training,  yet 
still  a  sort.     The  youths  who  distinguish  themselves 
in  the  lower  school  are   promoted  into  favourable 
stations  in  the  higher,  that  they  may  still  more  dis- 
tinguish themselves, — forward  and  forward:  it  ap- 
pears to  be  out  of  these  that  the  Official  Persons,  and 
incipient  Governors,    are    taken.     These   are   they 
whom  they  try  first,  whether  they  can  govern  or  not. 
And  surely  with  the  best  hope;  for  they  are  the  men 
that  have  already  shown  intellect.     Try  them,  they 
have  not  governed  or  administered  as  yet;  perhaps 
they  cannot;  but  there  is  no  doubt  they  have  some 
understanding, — without  whicli  no  man  can!-  Nei- 
ther is  Understanding  a  tool,  as  we  are  too  apt  to 
figure;  "it  is  a  hand  which  can  handle  any  tool." 
Try  these  men:  they  are  of  all  others  the  best  worth 
trying. — Surely  there  is  no   kind  of  government. 


LECT.  V.      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.  209 

constitution,  revolution,  social  apparatus  or  arrange- 
ment, that  I  know  of  in  this  world,  so  promising  to 
one's  scientific  curiosity  as  this.  -The  man  of  intel- 
lect at  the  top  of  affairs:  this  is  the  aim  of  all  consti- 
tutions and  revolutions,  if  they  have  any  aim.  For  the 
man  of  true  intellect,  as  I  assert  and  believe  always,  is 
the  noble-hearted  man  withal,  the  true,  just,  humane 
and  valiant  man.  Get  him  for  governor,  all  is  got; 
fail  to  get  him,  though  you  had  Constitutions  plenti- 
ful as  blackberries,  an'd  a  Parliament  in  every  vil- 
lage, there  is  nothing  yet  got! — 

These  things  look,  strange,  truly;  and  are  not  such 
as  we  commonly  speculate  upon.  But  we  are  fallen 
into  strange  times;  these  things  will  require  to  be 
speculated  upon ;  to  be  rendered  practicable,  to  be 
in  some  way  put  in  practice;  These,  and  many 
others.  On  all  hands  of  us,  there  is  the  announce- 
ment, audible  enough,  that  the  old  Empire  of  Rou- 
tine has  ended;  that  to  say  a  thing  has  long  been, 
is  no  reason  for  its  continuing  to  be.  The  things 
which  have  been  are  fallen  into  decay,  are  fallen 
into  incompetence;  large  masses  of  mankind,  in 
every  society  of  our  Europe,  are  no  longer  capable 
of  living  at  all  by  the  things  which  have  been* 
When  millions  of  men  can  no  longer  by  their  utmost 
exertion  gain  food  for  themselves,  and  "  the  third 
man  for  thirty-six  weeks  each  year  is  short  of  third- 
rate  potatoes,"  the  things  which  have  been  must  de- 
cidedly prepare  to  alter  themselves! — I  will  now 
quit  this  of  the  organization  of  Men  of  Letters. 

Alas,  the  evil  that  pressed  heaviest  on  those  Lite- 
rary Heroes  of  ours  was  not  the  want  of  organization 
for  men   of  Letters,  but  a  far  deeper  one;  out  of 

18 


210       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

which,  indeed,  this  and  so  many  other  evils  for  the 
Literary  Men,  and  for  all  men,  as  from  their  fountain, 
take  rise.  That  our  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters  had  to 
travel  without  high-way,  companionless,  through  an 
inorganic  chaos, — and  to  leave  his  own  life  and  fa- 
culty lying  there,  as  a  partial  contribution  towards 
pushing  some  high-way  through  it :  this,  had  not  his 
faculty  itself  been  so  perverted  and  paralyzed,  he 
might  have  put  up  with,  might  have  considered  to 
be  but  the  common  lot  of  Heroes.  His  fatal  misery 
was  the  spiritual  paralysis,  so  we  may  name  it,  of  the 
age  in  which  his  life  lay;  whereby  his  life  too,  do 
what  he  might,  was  half-paralyzed !  The  Eighteenth 
was  a  Skeptical  Century;  in  which  little  word  there 
is  a  whole  Pandora's  Box  of  miseries.  Skepticism 
means  not  intellectual  Doubt  alone,  but  moral 
Doubt;  all  sorts  of  z/zfidelity,  insincerity,  spiritual 
paralysis.  Perhaps,  in  few  centuries  that  one  could 
specify  since  the  world  began,  was  a  life  of  Heroism 
more  difficult  for  a  man.  That  was  not  an  age  of 
Faith, — an  age  of  Heroes!  The  very  possibility  of 
Heroism  had  been,  as  it  were,  formally  abnegated  in 
the  minds  of  all.  Heroism  was  gone  for  ever;  Trivi- 
ality, Formalism  and  Common-place  were  come  for 
ever.  The  "age  of  miracle"  had  been,  or  perhaps 
had  not  been;  but  it  was  not  any  longer.  An  effete 
world;  wherein  wonder,  Greatness,  Godhood  could 
not  now  dwell; — in  one  word,  a  Godless  world  ! 

How  mean,  dwarfish  are  their  ways  of  thinking,  in 
this  time, — compared  not  with  the  Christian  Shak- 
speares  and  Miltons,  but  with  the  old  Pagan  Skalds, 
with  any  species  of  believing  men.  The  living  Tree 
Igdrasil,  with  the  melodious  prophetic  waving  of  its 
world-wide  boughs,  deep  rooted  as  Hela,  has  died 


LECT.  V.      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  211 

out  into  the  clanking  of  a  world-MACHiNE.  "  Tree  " 
and  "  machine :"  contrast  these  two  things.  I,  for 
my  share,  declare  the  world  to  be  no  Machine;  it 
does  not  go  by  wheels  and  pinions  at  all! 

The  old  Norse  Heathen  had  a  truer  notion  of  God's 
world  than  these  poor  Machine  Skeptics:  the  old 
Heathen  Norse  were  sincere  men.  But  for  these  poor 
Skeptics  there  was  no  sincerity,  no  truth.  Half  truth 
and  hearsay  was  called  truth.  Truth,  for  most  men, 
meant  plausibility;  to  be  measured  by  the  number 
of  votes  you  could  get.  They  had  lost  any  notion 
that  sincerity  was  possible,  or  of  what  sincerity  was. 
How  many  Plausibilities  asking,  with  unaffected  sur- 
prise and  the  air  of  offended  virtue,  What!  am  not  I 
sincere?  Spiritual  Paralysis,  1  say,  nothing  left  but 
a  Mechanical  life,  was  the  characteristic  of  that  cen- 
tury. For  the  common  man,  unless  happily  he  stood 
below  his  century  and  belonged  to  another  prior  one, 
it  was  impossible  to  be  a  Believer,  a  Hero;  he  lay 
buried,  unconscious,  under  these  baleful  influences: 
To  the  strongest  man,  only  with  infinite  struggle  and 
confusion  was  it  possible  to  work  himself  half  loose; 
and  lead  as  it  were,  in  an  enchanted,  most  tragical 
way,  a  spiritual  death-in-life,  and  be  a  Half-Hero! 

Skepticism  is  the  name  we  give  to  all  this ;  as  the 
chief  symptom,  as  the  chief  origin  of  all  this.  Con- 
cerning which  so  much  were  to  be  said  !  It  would 
take  many  Discourses,  not  a  small  fraction  of  one  Dis- 
course, to  state  what  one  feels  about  that  Eighteenth 
Century  and  its  ways.  As  indeed  this,  and  the  like 
of  this,  which  we  now  call  Skepticism,  is  precisely 
the  black  malady  and  life-foe,  against  which  all 
teaching  and  discoursing  since  man's  life  began  has 
directed  itself ;  the  battle  of  Belief  against  Unbelief 


212       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

is  the  never-ending  battle!  Neither  is  it  in  the  way 
of  crimination  that  one  would  wish  to  speak.  Skep- 
ticism, for  that  century,  we  must  consider  as  the  decay 
of  old  ways  of  believing,  the  preparation  afar  off  for 
new,  better  and  wilder  ways, — an  inevitable  thing. 
We  will  not  blame  men  for  it;  we  will  lament  their 
hard  fate.  We  will  understand  that  destruction  of 
old  forms  is  not  destruction  of  everlasting  substances; 
that  Skepticism,  as  sorrowful  and  hateful  as  we  see 
it,  is  not  an  end,  but  a  beginning. 

The  other  day  speaking,  without  prior  purpose  that 
way,  of  Bentham's  theory  of  man  and  man's  life,  I 
chanced  to  call  it  a  more  beggarly  one  than  Maho- 
met's. I  am  bound  to  say,  now  when  it  is  once 
uttered,  that  such  is  my  deliberate  opinion.  Not  that 
one  would  mean  offence  against  the  man  Jeremy 
Bentham,  or  those  who  respect  and  believe  him. 
Bentham  himself,  and  even  the  creed  of  Bentham, 
seems  to  me  comparatively  worthy  of  praise.  It  is 
a  determinate  being  what  all  the  world,  in  a  cowardly 
half-and-half  manner,  was  tending  to  be.  Let  us 
have  the  crisis;  we  shall  either  have  death  or  the 
cure:  I  call  this  gross,  steam-engine  Utilitarianism 
an  approach  towards  new  Faith.  It  was  a  laying 
down  of  cant;  a  saying  to  oneself:  "Well  then,  this 
world  is  a  dead  iron  machine,  the  God  of  it  Gravita- 
tion and  selfish  Hunger;  let  us  see  what,  by  check- 
ing and  balancing,  and  good  adjustment  of  tooth  and 
pinion,  can  be  made  of  it!"  Benthamism  has  some- 
thing complete,  manful,  in  such  fearless  committal 
of  itself  to  what  it  finds  true;  you  may  call  it  Heroic, 
though  a  Heroism  with  its  eyes  put  out!  It  is  the 
calumniating  point,  and  fearless  ultimatum,  of  what 
lay  in  the  half-and-half  state,  pervading  man's  whole 


LECT.    V.      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.  213 

existence  in  that  Eighteenth  Century.  It  seems  to 
me,  all  deniers  of  Godhood,  and  all  lip-believers  of 
it,  are  bound  to  be  Benthamites,  if  they  have  courage 
and  honesty.  Benthamism  is  an  eyeless  Heroism: 
the  Human  species,  like  a  hapless  blinded  Samson 
grinding  in  the  Philistine  Mill,  clasps  convulsively 
the  pillars  of  its  Mill;  brings  huge  ruin  down,  but 
ultimately  deliverance  withal.  Of  Bentham  I  meant 
to  say  no  harm. 

But  this  I  do  say,  and  would  wish  all  men  to  know 
and  lay  to  heart,  that  he  who  discerns  nothing  but 
Mechanism  in  the  Universe,  has  in  the  fatalest  way 
missed  the  secret  of  the  Universe  altogether.  That 
all  Godhood  should  vanish  out  of  men's  conception 
of  this  Universe  seems  to  me  precisely  the  most  brutal 
error, — I  will  not  disparage  Heathenism  by  calling  it 
a  Heathen  error, — that  men  could  fall  into.  It  is  not 
true;  it  is  false  at  the  very  heart  of  it.  A  man  who 
thinks  so  will  think  wrong  about  all  things  in  the 
world;  this  original  sin  will  vitiate  all  other  conclu- 
sions he  can  form.  One  might  call  it  the  most  lamen- 
table of  Delusions, — not  forgetting  Witchcraft  itself! 
Witchcraft  worshipped  at  least  a  living  Devil;  but 
this  worships  a  dead  iron  devil;  no  God,  not  even  a 
Devil! — Whatsoever  is  noble,  divine,  inspired,  drops 
thereby  out  of  life.  There  remains  every  where  in 
life  a  despicable  caput  mortuum;  the  mechanical 
hull,  all  soul  fled  out  of  it.  How  can  a  man  act 
heroically?  The  "  Doctrine  of  Motives  "  will  teach 
him  that  it  is,  under  more  or  less  disguise,  nothing 
but  a  wretched  love  of  Pleasure,  fear  of  Pain;  that 
Hunger,  of  applause,  of  cash,  of  whatsoever  victual 
it  may  be,  is  the  ultimate  fact  of  man's  life:  Athe- 
ism, in  brief;— which  does  indeed  frightfully  punish 
18* 


214  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS. 

itself.  The  man,  I  say,  is  become  spiritually  a  pa- 
ralytic man;  this  godlike  Universe  a  dead  mechanical 
Steam-engine,  all  working  by  motives,  checks,  ba- 
lances, and  I  know  not  what;  wherein,  as  in  the 
detestable  belly  of  some  Phalaris'  Bull  of  his  own  con- 
triving, he  the  poor  Phalaris  sits  miserably  dying  !-^ 
Belief  I  define  to  be  the  healthy  act  of  a  man's 
mind.  It  is  a  mysterious  indescribable  process  that 
of  getting  to  believe; — indescribable,  as  all  vital  acts 
are.  We  have  our  mind  given  us,  not  that  it  may 
cavil  and  argue,  but  that  it  may  see  into  something, 
give  us  clear  belief  and  understanding  about  some- 
thing, whereon  we  are  then  to  proceed  to  act.  Doubt, 
truly,  is  not  itself  a  crime.  Certainly  we  do  not  rush 
out,  clutch  up  the  first  thing  we  find,  and  straightway 
believe  that!  All  manner  of  doubt,  inquiry,  o-xe-j/? 
as  it  is  named;  about  all  manner  of  objects,  dwells 
in  every  reasonable  mind,  flit  is  the  mystic  working 
of  the  mind,  on  the  object  it  is  getting  to  know  and 
believe/  Belief  comes  out  of  all  this,  above  ground, 
like  the  tree  from  its  hidden  roots.  But  now  if,  even 
on  common  things,  we  require  that  a  man  keep  his 
doubts  silent,  and  not  babble  of  them  till  they  in  some 
measure  become  affirmations  or  denials;  how  much 
more  in  regard  to  the  highest  things,  impossible  to 
speak  of  in  words  at  all!  That  a  man  parade  his 
doubt,  and  get  to  imagine  that  debating  and  logic 
(which  means  at  best  only  the  manner  of  telling  us 
your  thought,  belief  or  disbelief,  about  a  thing)  is  the 
triumph  and  true  work  of  what  intellect  he  has:  alas, 
this  is  as  if  you  should  overturn  the  tree,  and  instead 
of  green  boughs,  leaves  and  fruits,  show  us  ugly 
taloned  roots  turned  up  into  the  air, — and  no  growth, 
only  death  and  misery  going  on! 


LECT.  V.   THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.       215 

For  the  Skepticism,  as  I  said,  is  not  intellectual 
only;  it  is  moral  also;  a  chronic  atrophy  and  disease 
of  the  whole  soul.  A  man  lives  by  believing  some- 
thing; not  by  debating  and  arguing  about  many 
things.  A  sad  case  for  him  when  all  that  he  can 
manage  to  believe  is  something  he  can  button  in  his 
pocket,  and  with  one  or  the  other  organ  eat  and  di- 
gest! Lower  than  that  he  will  not  get.  We  call 
those  ages  in  which  he  gets  so  low  the  mournfulest, 
sickest  and  meanest  of  all  ages.  The  world's  heart 
is  palsied,  sick:  how  can  any  limb  of  it  be  whole? 
Genuine  Acting  ceases  in  all  departments  of  the 
world's  works;  dexterous  Similitude  of  Actingbegins. 
The  world's  wages  are  pocketed,  the  world's  work  is 
not  done.  Heroes  have  gone  out;  Quacks  have  come 
in.  Accordingly,  what  Century,  since  the  end  of  the 
Roman  world,  which  also  was  a  time  of  skepticism, 
simulacra  and  universal  decadence,  so  abounds  with 
Quacks  as  that  Eighteenth!  Consider  them,  with 
their  tumid  sentimental  vapouring  about  virtue,  bene- 
volence,— the  wretched  Quack-squadron,  Cagliostro 
at  the  head  of  them !  Few  men  were  without  quack- 
ery; they  had  got  to  consider  it  a  necessary  ingredient 
and  amalgam  for  truth.  Chatham,  our  brave  Chatham 
himself,  comes  down  to  the  House,  all  wrapt,  and  ban- 
daged; he  "has  crawled  out  in  great  bodily  suffer- 
ing," and  so  on; — forgets,  says  Walpole,  that  he  is 
acting  the  sick  man;  in  the  fire  of  debate,  snatches 
his  arm  from  the  sling  and  oratorically  swings  and 
brandishes  it!  Chatham  himself  lives  the  strangest 
mimetic  life,  half-hero,  half-quack,  all  along.  For 
indeed  the  world  is  full  of  dupes;  and  you  have  to 
gain  the  icorld's  suffrage!  How  the  duties  of  the 
world  will  be  done  in   that  case,  what  quantities  of 


216  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

error,  which  means  failure,  which  means  sorrow  and 
misery,  to  some  and  to  many,  will  gradually  accu- 
mulate in  all  provinces  of  the  world's  business,  we 
need  not  compute. 

It  seems  to  me,  you  lay  your  finger  here  on  the 
heart  of  the  world's  maladies,  when  you  call  it  a 
Skeptical  World.  An  insincere  world;  a  godless 
untruth  of  a  world!  It  is  out  of  this,  as  I  consider, 
that  the  whole  tribe  of  social  pestilences,  French 
Revolutions,  Chartisms,  and  what  not,  have  derived 
their  being, — their  chief  necessity  to  be.  This  must 
alter.  Till  this  alter,  nothing  can  beneficially  alter. 
My  one  hope  of  the  world,  my  inexpugnable  conso- 
lation in  looking  at  the  miseries  of  the  world,  is  that 
this  is  altering.  Here  and  there  one  does  now  find  a 
man  who  knows,  as  of  old,  that  this  world  is  a  Truth, 
and  no  Plausibility  and  Falsity;  that  he  himself  is 
alive,  not  dead  or  paralytic;  and  the  world  is  alive, 
instinct  with  Godhood,  beautiful  and  awful,  even  as 
in  the  beginning  of  days!  One  man  once  knowing 
this,  many  men,  all  men,  must  by  and  by  come  to 
know  it.  It  lies  there  clear,  for  whosoever  will  take 
the  spectacles  off  his  eyes  and  honestly  look  to  know! 
For  such  a  man  the  Unbelieving  Century,  with  its 
unblessed  Products  is;  already  past;  a  new  century, 
is  already  come.  The  old  unblessed  Products  and 
Performances,  as  solid  as  they  look,  are  Phantasms, 
preparing  speedily  to  vanish.  To  this  and  the  other 
noisy,  very  great-looking  Simulacrum  with  the  whole 
world  huzzaing  at  its  heels,  he  can  say,  composedly 
stepping  aside:  Thou  art  not  true;  thou  art  not 
extant,  only  semblant;  go  thy  way!  Yes,  hollow 
Formulism,  grows  Benthamism,  and  other  unheroie 
atheistic  Insincerity  is  visibly  and   even   rapidly  de- 


LECT.  V.      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  217 

dining.  An  unbelieving  Eighteenth  Century  is  but 
an  exception, — such  as  now  and  then  occurs.  I  pro- 
phesy that  the  world  will  once  more  become  sincere; 
a  believing  world  with  many  Heroes  in  it,  a  Heroic 
World!  It  will  then  be  a  victorious  world;  never 
till  then. 

Or  indeed  what  of  the  world  and  its  victories?  Men 
speak  too  much  about  the  world.  Each  one  of  us 
here,  let  the  world  go  how  it  will,  and  be  victorious 
or  not  victorious,  has  he  not  a  Life  of  his  own  to  lead? 
One  Life;  a  little  gleam  of  Time  between  two  Eter- 
nities; no  second  chance  to  us  for  evermore!  It  were 
well  for  us  to  live  not  as  fools  and  simulacra,  but  as 
wise  and  realities.  The  world's  being  saved  will  not 
save  us;  nor  the  world's  being  lost  destroy  us.  We 
should  look  to  ourselves:  there  is  great  merit  here  in 
the  duty  of  "  staying  at  home!"  And,  on  the  whole, 
to  say  truth,  I  never  heard  of"  worlds"  being  "saved  " 
in  any  other  way.  That  mania  of  saving  worlds  is 
itself  a  piece  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  with  its 
windy  sentimentalism.  Lotus  not  follow  it  too  far. 
For  the  saving  of  the  world  I  will  trust  confidently  to 
the  Maker  of  the  world ;  and  look  a  little  to  my  own 
saving,  which  I  am  more  competent  to! — In  brief, 
for  the  world's  sake,  and  for  our  own,  we  will  rejoice 
greatly  that  Skepticism,  Insincerity,  Mechanical 
Atheism,  with  all  their  poison  dews,  are  going,  and 
as  good  as  gone. 

Now  it  was  under  such  conditions,  in  those  times 
of  Johnson,  that  our  Men  of  Letters  had  to  live. 
Times  in  which  there  was  properly  no  truth  in  life. 
Old  Truths  had  fallen  nigh  dumb;  the  new  lay  yet 
hidden,  not  trying  to  speak.  That  Man's  Life  here 
below  was  a  sincerity  and  Fact,  and  would  for  ever 


2 IS  THE   HERO  AS  MAX  OF  LETTERS. 

continue  such,  no  intimation  in  that  dusk  of  the 
world,  had  yet  dawned.  No  intimation ;  not  even  any 
French  Revolution, — which  we  define  to  be  a  truth 
once  more,  though  a  Truth  clad  in  hell-fire!  How 
different  was  the  Luther's  pilgrimage,  with  its  as- 
sured goal,  from  the  Johnson's  girt  with  mere  tradi- 
ditions,  suppositions,  grown  now  incredible,  unintel- 
ligible! Mahomet's  Formulas  were  of  "  wood  waxed 
and  oiled,"  and  could  be  burnt  out  of  one's  way: 
poor  Johnson's  were  far  more  difficult  to  burn. — The 
strong  man  will  ever  find  work,  which  means  diffi- 
culty, pain,  to  the  full  measure  of  his  strength.  But 
to  make  out  a  victory,  in  those  circumstances  of  our 
poor  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,  was  perhaps  more  diffi- 
cult than  in  any.  Not  obstruction,  disorganization, 
Bookseller  Osborne  and  Four-pence-halfpenny  a  day; 
not  this  alone;  but  the  light  of  his  own  soul  was 
taken  from  him.  -No  land-mark  on  the  Earth;  and, 
alas,  what  is  that  to  having  no  loadstar  in  the  Hea- 
ven! *  We  need  not  wonder  that  none  of  those  Three 
men  rose  to  victory.  That  they  fought  truly,  is  the 
highest  praise.  With  a  mournful  sympathy  we  will 
contemplate,  if  not  three  living  victorious  Heroes, 
as  I  said,  the  Tombs  of  Three  fallen  Heroes!  They 
fell  for  us  too;  making  a  way  for  us.  There  are  the 
mountains  which  they  hurled  abroad  in  their  con- 
fused War  of  the  Giants;  under  which,  their  strength 
and  life  spent,  they  now  lie  buried. 

I  have  already  written  of  these  three  Literary  He- 
roes, expressly  or  incidentally;  what  I  suppose  is 
known  to  most  of  you  ;  what  need  not  be  spoken  or 
written  a  second  time.  They  concern  us  here  as  the 
singular  Prophets  of  that  singular  age;  for  such  they 


LECT.  V.        THE  IIEKO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  219 

virtually  were;  and  the  aspect  they  and  their  world 
exhibit,  under  this  point  of  view,  might  lead  us  into 
reflections  enough!  I  call  them,  all  three,  Genuine 
Men  more  or  less;  faithfully,  for  most  part  uncon- 
sciously, struggling  to  be  genuine,  and  plant  them- 
selves on  the  everlasting  truth  of  things.  This  to  a 
degree  that  eminently  distinguishes  them  from  the 
poor  artificial  mass  of  their  contemporaries;  and  ren- 
ders them  worthy  to  be  considered  as  Speakers,  in 
some  measure,  of  the  everlasting  truth,  as  Prophets 
in  that  age  of  theirs.  By  Nature  herself  a  noble  ne- 
cessity was  laid  on  them  to  be  so.  They  were  men 
of  such  magnitude  that  they  could  not  live  on  unre- 
alities,—clouds,  froth  and  all  inanity  gave  way  under 
them:  there  was  no  footing  for  them  but  on  firm 
earth;  no  rest  or  regular  motion  for  them,  if  they 
got  not  footing  there.  To  a  certain  extent,  they  were 
Sons  of  Nature  once  more  in  an  age  of  Artifice; 
once  more,  Original  Men. 

As  for  Johnson,  I  have  always  considered  him  to 
be,  by  nature,  one  of  our  great  English  souls.  A 
strong  and  noble  man;  so  much  left  undeveloped 
in  him  to  the  last:  in  a  kindlier  element  what  might 
he  not  have  been, — Poet,  Priest,  sovereign  Ruler! 
On  the  whole,  a  man  must  not  complain  of  his  "ele- 
ment," of  his  "time"  or  the  like;  it  is  thriftless  work 
doing  so.  His  time  is  bad;  well  then,  he  is  there 
to  make  it  better! — Johnson's  youth  was  poor,  iso- 
lated, hopeless,  very  miserable.  Indeed,  it  does  not 
seem  possible  that,  in  any  the  favourablest  outward 
circumstances,  Johnson's  life  could  have  been  other 
than  a  painful  one.  The  world  might  have  had 
more  of  profitable  work  out  of  him,  or  less;  but  his 
effort  against  the  world's  work  could  never  have  been 


220       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

a  light  one.  Nature,  in  return  for  his  nobleness,  had 
said  to  him,  Live  in  an  element  of  diseased  sorrow. 
Nay  perhaps  the  sorrow  and  the  nobleness  were  in- 
timately and  even  inseparably  connected  with  each 
other.  At  all  events,  poor  Johnson  had  to  go  about 
girt  with  continual  hypochondria,  physical  and  spi- 
ritual pain.  Like  a  Hercules  with  the  burning  Nessus' 
shirt  on  him,  which  shoots  in  on  him  dull  incurable 
misery:  the  Nessus'  shirt  not  to  be  stripped  off,  which 
is  his  own  natural  skin  !  In  this  manner,  he  had  to 
live. 

Figure  him  there,  with  his  scrofulous  diseases,  with 
his  great  greedy  heart,  and  unspeakable  chaos  of 
thoughts;  stalking  mournful  as  a  stranger  in  this 
Earth;  eagerly  devouring  what  spiritual  thing  he 
could  come  at:  school-languages  and  other  merely 
grammatical  stuff,  if  there  were  nothing  better!  The 
largest  soul  that  was  in  all  England;  and  provision 
made  for  it  of  "  fourpence-halfpenny  a  day."  Yet  a 
giant  invincible  soul;  a  true  man's.  One  remem- 
bers always  that  story  of  the  shoes  at  Oxford:  the 
rough,  seamy-faced,  raw-boned  College  Servitor 
stalking  about,  in  winter-season,  with  his  shoes  worn 
out;  how  the  charitable  Gentleman  Commoner  se- 
cretly places  a  new  pair  at  his  door;  and  the  raw- 
boned  Servitor,  lifting  them,  looking  at  them  near, 
with  his  dim  eyes,  with  what  thoughts, — pitches  them 
out  of  window!  Wet  feet,  mud,  frost,  hunger  or 
what  you  will;  but  not  beggaiy:  we  cannot  stand 
beggary!  Rude  stubborn  self-help  here;  a  whole 
world  of  squalor,  rudeness,  confused  misery  and 
want,  yet  of  nobleness  and  manfulness  withal.  It  is 
a  type  of  the  man's  life,  this  pitching  away  of  the 
*hoes.     An   original  man; — not  a  second-hand,  bor- 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  221 

rowing  or  begging  man:  Let  us  stand  on  our  own 
basis,  at  any  rate!  On  such  shoes  as  we  ourselves 
can  get.*  On  frost  and  mud,  if  you  will,  but  honest- 
ly on  that;  on  the  reality  and  substance  which  Na- 
ture gives  us,  not  on  the  semblance,  on  the  thing  she 
has  given  another  than  us  f 

And  yet  with  all  this  rugged  pride  of  manhood 
and  self-help,  was  there  ever  soul  more  tenderly 
affectionate,  loyally  submissive  to  what  was  really 
higher  than  he?  Great  souls  are  always  loyally 
submissive,  reverent  to  what  is  over  them;  only 
small  mean  souls  are  otherwise.  I  could  not  find  a 
better  proof  of  what  I  said  the  other  day,  That  the 
sincere  man  was  by  nature  the  obedient  man  ;  that 
only  in  a  World  of  Heroes  was  there  loyal  Obedience 
to  the  Heroic.  The  essence  of  originality  is  not  that 
it  be  new:  Johnson  believed  altogether  in  the  old; 
he  found  the  old  opinions  credible  for  him,  fit  for 
him;  and  in  a  right  heroic  manner,  lived  under  them. 
He  is  well  worth  study  in  regard  to  that.  For  we  are 
to  say  that  Johnson  was  far  other  than  a  mere  man 
of  words  and  formulas;  he  was  a  man  of  truths  and 
facts.  He  stood  by  the  old  formulas;  the  happier 
was  it  for  him  that  he  could  so  stand  :  but  in  all  for- 
mulas that  he  could  stand  by,  there  needed  to  be  a 
most  genuine  substance.  Very  curious  how,  in  that 
poor  Paper-age,  so  barren,  artificial,  thick-quilted 
with  Pedantries,  Hearsays,  the  great  Fact  of  this 
Universe  glared  in  for  ever,  wonderful,  indubitable, 
unspeakable,  divine-infernal,  upon  this  man  too ! 
How  he  harmonized  his  Formulas  with  it,  how  he 
managed  at  all  under  such  circumstances:  that  is  a 
thing  worth  seeing.  A  thing  "  to  be  looked  at  with 
reverence,  with  pity,  with  awe."  That  Church  of 
19 


222  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

St.  Clement  Danes,  where  Johnson  still  worshipped 
in  the  era  of  Voltaire,  is  to  be  a  venerable  place. 

It  was  in  virtue  of  his  sincerity,  of  his  speaking 
still  in  some  sort  from  the  heart  of  Nature,  though 
in  the  current  artificial  dialect,  that  Johnson  was  a 
Prophet.  Are  not  all  dialects  "artificial?"  Artificial 
things  are  not  all  false; — nay,  every  true  product  of 
Nature  will  infallibly  shape  itself;  we  may  say  all 
artificial  things  are,  at  the  starting  of  them,  true. 
What  we  call  "  Formulas  "  are  not  in  their  origin  bad ; 
they  are  indispensably  good.  Formula  is  method, 
habitude;  found  wherever  man  is  found.  Formulas 
fashion  themselves  as  Paths  do,  as  beaten  Highways, 
leading  towards  some  sacred  or  high  object,  whither 
many  men  are  bent.  Consider  it.  One  man,  full 
of  heartfelt  earnest  impulse,  finds  out  a  way  of  doing 
somewhat, — were  it  of  uttering  his  soul's  reve- 
rence for  the  Highest,  were  it  but  of  fitly  saluting 
his  fellow-man. — An  inventor  was  needed  to  do  that, 
a  poet;  he  has  articulated  the  dim-struggling  thought 
that  dwelt  in  his  own  and  many  hearts.  This  is  his 
way  of  doing  that;  these  are  his  footsteps,  the  be- 
ginning of  a  "Path."  And  now  see:  the  second 
man  travels  naturally  in  the  footsteps  of  his  foregoer, 
it  is  the  easiest  method.  In  the  footsteps  of  his  fore- 
goer;  yet  with  improvements,  changes  where  such 
seem  good;  at  all  events  with  enlargements,  the  Path 
ever  widening  itself  as  more  travel  it ; — till  at  last  there 
is  a  broad  Highway  whereon  the  whole  world  may 
travel  and  drive.  While  there  remains  a  City  or 
Shrine,  or  any  Reality  to  drive  to,  at  the  farther  end, 
the  Highway  shall  be  right  welcome !  When  the  City 
is  gone,  we  will  forsake  the  Highway.  In  this  man- 
ner all  Institutions,  Practices,  Regulated  Things  in 


LECT.  V.         THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  223 

the  world  have  come  into  existence,  and  gone  out  of 
existence.  Formulas  all  begin  by  being  full  of  sub- 
stance; you  may  call  them  the  skin,  the  articulation 
into  shape,  into  limbs  and  skin,  of  a  substance  that 
is  already  there;  they  had  not  been  there  otherwise. 
Idols,  as  we  said,  are  not  idolatrous  till  they  become 
doubtful,  empty  for  the  worshipper's  heart.  Much 
as  we  talk  against  formulas,  I  hope  no  one  of  us  is 
ignorant  withal  of  the  high  significance  of  true  Formu- 
las; that  they  were,  and  will  ever  be,  the  indispen- 
sablest  furniture  of  our  habitation  in  this  world. 

Mark,  too,  how  little  Johnson  boasts  of  his  "  sin- 
cerity." He  has  no  suspicion  of  his  being  particularly 
sincere, — of  his  being  particularly  any  thing!  A  hard- 
struggling,  weary-hearted  man,  or  "scholar"  as  he  calls 
himself,  trying  hard  to  get  some  honest  livelihood  in 
the  world,  not  to  starve,  but  to  live — without  steal- 
ing! A  noble  unconsciousness  is  in  him.  He  does 
not  "  engrave  Truth  on  his  watch-seal ;"  no,  but  he 
stands  by  truth,  speaks  by  it,  works  and  lives  by  it. 
Thus  it  ever  is.  Think  of  it  once  more.  The  man 
whom  nature  has  appointed  to  do  great  things  is,  first 
of  all,  furnished  with  that  openness  of  Nature  which 
renders  him  incapable  of  being  /^sincere!  To  his 
large,  open,  deep-feeling  heart  Nature  is  a  Fact:  all 
hearsay  is  hearsay;  the  unspeakable  greatness  of 
this  Mystery  of  Life,  let  him  acknowledge  it  or  not, 
nay,  even  though  he  seem  to  forget  it  or  deny  it,  is 
ever  present  to  him-, — fearful  and  wonderful,  on  this 
hand  and  on  that.  He  has  a  basis  of  sincerity;  un- 
recognised, because  never  questioned  or  capable  of 
(question.  Mirabeau,  Mahomet,  Cromwell,  Napo- 
leon; all  the  Great  Men  I  ever  heard  of  have  this  as 
the  primary  material  of  them.     Innumerable  com- 


224  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

monplace  men  are  debating,  are  talking  every  where 
their  common-place  doctrines,  which  they  have 
learned  by  logic,  by  rote,  at  second-hand :  to  that 
kind  of  man  all  this  is  still  nothing.  He  must  have 
truth ;  truth  which  he  feels  to  be  true.*  How  shall 
he  stand  otherwise?  His  whole  soul,  at  all  mo- 
ments, in  all  ways,  tells  him  that  there  is  no  stand- 
ing. He  is  under  the  noble  necessity  of  being  true. 
Johnson's  way  of  thinking  about  this  world  is  not 
mine,  any  more  than  Mahomet's  was:  but  I  recog- 
nise the  everlasting  element  of  heart-sincerity  in 
both ;  and  see  with  pleasure  how  neither  of  them 
remains  ineffectual.  Neither  of  them  is  as  chaff 
sown ;  in  both  of  them  is  something  which  the  seed- 
field  will  grow. 

Johnson  was  a  Prophet  to  his  people;  preached  a 
Gospel  to  them, — as  all  like  him  always  do.  The 
highest  Gospel  he  preached  we  may  describe  as  a 
kind  of  Moral  Prudence:  "in  a  world  where  much 
is  to  be  done  and  little  is  to  be  known,"  see  how  you 
will  do  it !  A  thing  well  worth  preaching.  "A 
world  where  much  is  to  be  done  and  little  is  to  be 
known:"  do  not  sink  yourselves  in  boundless,  bottom- 
less abysses  of  Doubt,  of  wretched  god-forgetting  Un- 
belief;— you  were  miserable  then,  powerless,  mad: 
how  could  you  do  or  work  at  all?  Such  Gospel  John- 
son preached  and  taught; — coupled,  theoretically  and 
practically,  with  this  other  great  Gospel,  "Clear  your 
mind  of  Cant!"  Have  no  trade  with  Cant:  stand  on 
the  cold  mud  in  the  frosty  weather,  but  let  it  be  in  your 
own  real  torn  shoes:  "that  will  be  better  for  you,"  as 
Mahomet  says  !  I  call  this,  call  these  two  things 
joined  together,  a  great  Gospel,  the  greatest  perhaps 
that  was  possible  at  that  time. 


LECT.  V.  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.       225 

Johnson's  Writings,  which  once  had  such  currency 
and  celebrity,  are  now  as  it  were  disowned  by  the 
young  generation.  It  is  not  wonderful;  Johnson's 
opinions  are  fast  becoming  obsolete:  but  his  style  of 
thinking  and  of  living,  we  may  hope,  will  never  be- 
come obsolete.  I  find  in  Johnson's  Books  the  indis- 
putable traces  of  a  great  intellect  and  great  heart; — 
ever  welcome,  under  what  obstructions  and  perver- 
sions soever.  They  are  sincere  words,  those  of  his; 
he  means  things  by  them.  A  wondrous  buckram 
style, — the  best  he  could  get  to  then;  a  measured 
grandiloquence,  stepping  or  rather  stalking  along  in 
a  very  solemn  way,  grown  obsolete  now;  sometimes 
a  tumid  size  of  phraseology,  not  in  proportion  to  the 
contents  of  it:  all  this  you  will  put  up  with.  For 
the  phraseology,  tumid  or  not,  has  always  something 
within  it.  So  many  beautiful  styles,  and  books, 
with  nothing  in  them; — a  man  is  a  malefactor  to  the 
world  who  writes  such!  They  are  the  avoidable 
kind! — Had  Johnson  left  nothing  but  his  Dictionary, 
one  might  have  traced  there  a  great  intellect,  a 
genuine  man.  Looking  to  its  clearness  of  definition, 
its  general  solidity,  honesty,  insight  and  successful 
method,  it  may  be  called  the  best  of  all  Dictionaries. 
There  is  in  it  a  kind  of  architectural  nobleness;  it 
stands  there  like  a  great  solid  square-built  edifice, 
finished  symmetrically  complete:  you  judge  that  a 
true  builder  did  it. 

One  word,  in  spite  of  our  haste,  must  be  granted 
to  poor  Bozzy.  He  passes  for  a  mean,  inflated, 
gluttonous  creature;  and  was  so  in  many  senses. 
Yet  the  fact  of  his  reverence  for  Johnson  will  ever 
remain  note-worthy.  The  foolish,  conceited  Scotch 
Laird,  the  most  conceited  man  of  his  time,  approaeh- 

19* 


%26  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

ing  in  such  awe-struck  attitude  the  great  dusty  irasci- 
ble Pedagogue  in  his  mean  garret  there:  it  is  a 
genuine  reverence  for  Excellence  ;  a  ivorshijj  for  He- 
roes, at  a  time  when  neither  Heroes  nor  worship 
were  surmised  to  exist.  Heroes,  it  would  seem, 
exist  always,  and  a  certain  worship  of  them!  We 
will  also  take  the  liberty  to  deny  altogether  that  of 
the  witty  Frenchman,  That  no  man  is  a  Hero  to  his 
valet-de-chambre.  Or  if  so,  it  is  not  the  Hero's 
blame,  but  the  Valet's:  that  his  soul,  namely,  is  a 
mean  valel-sou\ !  He  expects  his  Hero  to  advance 
in  royal  stage-trappings,  with  measured  step,  trains 
borne  behind  him,  trumpets  sounding  before  him. 
It  should  stand  rather,  No  man  can  be  a  Grand- 
Monarque  to  his  valet-de-chambre.  Strip  your 
Louis  Quatorze  of  his  king-gear,  and  there  is  left 
nothing  but  a  poor  forked  radish  with  a  head  fantas- 
tically carved; — admirable  to  no  valet.  The  valet 
does  not  know  a  Hero  when  he  sees  him  !  Alas,  no: 
it  requires  a  kind  of  Hero  to  do  that; — and  one  of 
the  world's  wants,  in  this  as  in  other  senses,  is  for 
most  part  want  of  such. 

On  the  whole,  shall  we  not  say,  that  Boswell's 
admiration  was  well  bestowed  ;  that  he  could  have 
found  no  soul  in  all  Englnnd  so  worthy  of  bending 
down  before?  Shall  we  not  say,  of  this  great  mourn- 
ful Johnson,  too,  that  he  guided  his  difficult  confused 
existence  wisely ;  led  it  well,  like  a  right  valiant 
man?  That  waste  chaos  of  Authorship  by  Trade; 
that  waste  chaos  of  Skepticism  in  religion  and  poli- 
tics, in  life-theory  and  life-practice  ;  in  his  poverty, 
in  his  dust  and  dimness,  with  the  sick  body  and  the 
rusty  coat:  he  made  it  do  for  him,  like  a  brave  man. 
-Not  wholly  without  a  loadstar  in   the  Eternal;   he 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  227 

had  still  a  loadstar,  as  the  brave  all  need  to  have : 
with  his  eyes  set  on  that,  he  would  change  his  course 
for  nothing  in  these  confused  vortices  of  the  lower 
sea  of  time.  "To  the  Spirit  of  Lies,  bearing  death 
and  hunger,  he  would  in  no  wise  strike  his  flag." 
Brave  old  Samuel:  idtimus  Romanorum! 

Of  Rousseau  and  his  Heroism  I  cannot  say  so  much. 
He  is  not  what  I  call  a  strong  man.  A  morbid,  ex- 
citable, spasmodic  man;  at  best,  intense  rather  than 
strong.  He  had  not  "the  talent  of  Silence,"  an  in- 
valuable talent;  which  few  Frenchmen,  or  indeed 
men  of  any  sort  in  these  times,  excel  in!  The  suf- 
fering man  ought  really  "to  consume  hisown  smoke;" 
there  is  no  good  in  emitting  smoke  till  you  have  made 
it  intone, — which,  in  the  metaphorical  sense  too, 
all  smoke  is  capable  of  becoming!  Rousseau  has  not 
depth  or  width,  not  calm  force  for  difficulty;  the  first 
characteristic  of  true  greatness.  A  fundamental  mis- 
take'to  call  vehemence  and  rigidity  strength  !  A 
man  is  not  strong  who  takes  convulsion-fits;  though 
six  men  cannot  hold  him  then.  He  that  can  walk 
under  the  heaviest  weight  without  staggering,  he  is. 
the  strong  man.  We  need  for  ever,  especially  in 
these  loud-shrieking  days,  to  remind  ourselves  of 
that.  A  man  who  cannot  hold  his  peace,  till  the 
time  come  for  speaking  and  acting,  is  no  right 
man. 

Poor  Rousseau's  face  is  to  me  expressive  of  him.  A 
high,  but  narrow-contracted  intensity  in  it:  bony 
brow;  deep,  straight-set  eyes,  in  which  there  is 
something  bewildered-looking, — bewildered,  peering 
with  lynx-eagerness.  A  face  full  of  misery,  even 
ignoble  misery,  and  also  of  the  antagonism  against 


228      THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

that;  something  mean,  plebeian  there,  redeemed  only 
by  intensity:  the  face  of  what  is  called  a  Fanatic, — 
a  sadly  contracted  Hero !  We  name  him  here  be- 
cause, with  all  his  drawbacks,  and  they  are  many, 
he  has  the  first  and  chief  characteristic  of  a  Hero:  he 
is  heartily  in  earnest.  In  earnest,  if  ever  man  was; 
as  none  of  these  French  Philosophers  were.  Nay, 
one  would  say,  of  an  earnestness  too  great  for  his 
otherwise  sensitive,  rather  feeble  nature;  and  which 
indeed  in  the  end  drove  him  into  the  strangest  inco- 
herences, almost  delirations.  There  had  come,  at 
last,  to  be  a  kind  of  madness  in  him:  his  Ideas 
possessed  him  like  demons,  hurried  him  so  about, 
drove  him  over  steep  places! — 

The  fault  and  misery  of  Rousseau  was  what  we 
easily  name  by  a  single  word,  Egotism;  which  is  in- 
deed the  source  and  summary  of  all  faults  and  mise- 
ries whatsoever.  He  had  not  perfected  himself  into 
victory  over  mere  Desire;  a  mean  Hunger,  in  many 
sorts,  was  still  the  motive  principle  of  him.  I  am 
afraid  he  was  a  very  vain  man;  hungry  for  the 
praises  of  men.  You  remember  Genlis's  experience 
of  him.  She  took  Jean  Jacques  to  the  Theatre;  he 
bargaining  for  a  strict  incognito. — "He  would  not  be 
seen  there  for  the  world!"  The  curtain  did  happen 
nevertheless  to  be  drawn  aside:  the  Pit  recognised 
Jean  Jacques,  but  took  no  great  notice  of  him  !  He 
expressed  the  bitterest  indignation;  gloomed  all  the 
evening,  spake  no  other  than  surly  words.  The  glib 
Countess  remained  entirely  convinced  that  his  anger 
was  not  at  being  seen,  but  at  not  being  applauded 
when  seen.  How  the  whole  nature  of  the  man  is 
poisoned;  nothing  but  suspicion,  self-isolation,  fierce 
moody  ways!    He  could  not  live  with  any  body.    A 


LECT.  V.        THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  229 

man  of  some  rank  from  the  country,  who  visited  him 
often,  and  used  to  sit  with  him,  expressing  all  reve- 
rence and  affection  for  him,  comes  one  day;  finds 
Jean  Jacques  full  of  the  sourest,  unintelligible  hu- 
mour. "Monsieur,"  said  Jean  Jacques,  with  flaming 
eyes,  "  I  know  why  you  come  here.  You  come 
to  see  what  a  poor  life  I  lead;  how  little  is  in  my 
poor  pot  that  is  boiling  there.  Well,  look  into  the 
pot!  There  is  half  a  pound  of  meat,  one  carrot  and 
three  onions;  that  is  all:  go  and  tell  the  whole  world 
that,  if  you  like,  Monsieur!" — A  man  of  this  sort 
was  far  gone.  The  whole  world  got  itself  supplied 
with  anecdotes,  for  light  laughter,  for  a  certain  thea- 
trical interest,  from  these  perversions  and  contortions 
of  poor  Jean  Jacques.  Alas,  to  him  they  were  not 
laughing  or  theatrical ;  too  real  to  him!  The  con- 
tortions of  a  dying  gladiator :  the  crowded  amphi- 
theatre looks  on  with  entertainment ;  but  the  gladia- 
tor is  in  agonies  and  dying. 

And  yet  this  Rousseau,  as  we  say,  with  his  pas- 
sionate appeals  to  Mothers,  with  his  Contrat-social, 
with  his  celebrations  of  Nature,  even  of  savage  life 
in  Nature,  did  once  more  touch  upon  Reality,  strug- 
gle towards  Reality;  was  doing  the  function  of  a 
Prophet  to  his  Time.  As  he  could,  and  as  the  Time 
could!  Strangely,  through  all  that  defacement,  de- 
gradation and  almost  madness,  there  is  in  the  inmost 
heart  of  poor  Rousseau  a  spark  of  real  heavenly  fire. 
Once  more,  out  of  the  element  of  that  withered, 
mocking  Philosophism,  Skepticism,  and  Persiflage, 
there  has  arisen  in  this  man  the  ineradicable  feeling; 
and  knowledge  that  this  Life  of  ours  is  true;  not  a 
Skepticism,  Theorem,  or  Persiflage,  but  a  Fact,  an 
awful  Reality.     Nature  had  made  that  revelation  to 


230  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

him;  had  ordered  him  to  speak  it  out.  He  got  it 
spoken  out;  if  not  well  and  clearly,  then  ill  and 
dimly, — as  clearly  as  he  could.  Nay,  what  are  all 
errors  and  perversities  of  his,  even  those  stealings  of 
ribands,  aimless  confused  miseries  and  vagabondisms, 
if  we  will  interpret  them  kindly,  but  the  blinkard 
dazzlement  and  staggerings  to  and  fro  of  a  man  sent 
on  an  errand  he  is  too  weak  for,  by  a  path  he  cannot 
yet  find  ?  Men  are  led  by  strange  ways.  One  should 
have  tolerance  for  a  man,  hope  of  him;  leave  him 
to  try  yet  what  he  will  do.  While  life  lasts,  hope 
lasts  for  every  man. 

Of  Rousseau's  literary  talents,  greatly  celebrated 
still  among  his  countrymen,  I  do  not  say  much.  His 
Books,  like  himself,  are  what  I  call  unhealthy ;  not 
the  good  sort  of  Books.  There  is  a  sensuality  in 
Rousseau.  Combined  with  such  an  intellectual  gift 
as  his,  it  makes  pictures  of  a  certain  gorgeous  attrac- 
tiveness: but  they  are  not  genuinely  poetical.  Not 
white  sunlight;  something  operatic;  a  kind  of  rose- 
pink,  artificial  bedizenment.  It  is  frequent,  or  rather 
it  is  universal  among  the  French  since  his  time. 
Madame  de  Stael  has  something  of  it;  St.  Pierre; 
and  down  onwards  to  the  present  astonishing  coavul~ 
sionary  "  Literature  of  Desperation,"  it  is  every  where 
abundant.  That  same  rose-pink  is  not  the  right  hue* 
Look  at  a  Shakspeare,  at  a  Goethe,  even  at  a  Walter 
Scott!  He  who  has  once  seen  into  this,  has  seen  the 
difference  of  the  True  from  the  Sham-True,  and  will 
discriminate  them  ever  afterwards. 

We  had  to  observe  in  Johnson  how  much  good  a 
Prophet,  under  all  disadvantages  and  disorganiza-* 
tions,  can  accomplish  for  the  world.  In  Rousseau 
we  are  called  tp  look  rather  at  the  fearful  amount  o£ 


LECT.  V        THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS.  231 

evil  which,  under  such  disorganization,  may  accom- 
pany the  good.  Historically  it  is  a  most  pregnant 
spectacle,  that  of  Rousseau.  Banished  into  Paris 
garrets,  in  the  gloomy  company  of  his  own  Thoughts 
and  Necessities  there;  driven  from  post  to  pillar; 
fretted,  exasperated  till  the  heart  of  him  went  mad, 
he  had  grown  to  feel  deeply  that  the  world  was  not 
his  friend  nor  the  world's  law.  It  was  expedient,  if 
any  way  possible,  that  such  a  man  should  not  have 
been  set  in  flat  hostility  with  the  world.  He  could 
be  cooped  into  garrets,  laughed  at  as  a  maniac,  left 
to  starve  like  a  wild  beast  in  his  cage; — but  he  could 
not  be  hindered  from  setting  the  world  on  fire/  The 
French  Revolution  found  its  Evangelist  in  Rousseau. 
His  semi-delirious  speculations  on  the  miseries  of 
civilized  life,  the  preferability  of  the  savage  to  the 
civilized,  and  such  like,  helped  well  to  produce  a 
whole  delirium  in  France  generally.  True,  you  may 
well  ask,  What  could  the  world,  the  governors  of  the 
world,  do  with  such  a  man !  Difficult  to  say  what 
the  governors  of  the  world  could  do  with  him  I  What 
he  could  do  with  them  is  unhappily  clear  enough, — 
guillotine  a  great  many  of  them!  Enough  now  of 
Rousseau. 

It  was  a  curious  phenomenon,  in  the  withered,  un- 
believing, second-hand  Eighteenth  Century,  that  of 
a  Hero  starting  up,  among  the  artificial  pasteboard 
figures  and  productions,  in  the  guise  of  a  Robert 
Burns.  Like  a  little  well  in  the  rocky  desert  places 
— like  a  sudden  splendour  of  Heaven  in  the  artificial 
Vauxhall!  People  knew  not  what  to  make  of  it. 
They  took  it  for  a  piece  of  the  Vauxhall  fire- work; 
alas,  it  let  itself  be  so  taken,  though  struggling  half- 


232       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OP  LETTERS. 

blindly,  as  in  bitterness  of  death,  against  that!  Per- 
haps no  man  had  such  a  false  reception  from  his 
fellow  men.  Once  more  a  very  wasteful  life-drama 
was  enacted  under  the  sun. 

The  tragedy  of  Burns's  life  is  known  to  all  of  you. 
Surely  we  may  say,  if  discrepancy  between  place 
held  and  place  merited  constitute  perverseness  of  lot 
for  a  man,  no  lot  could  be  more  perverse  than  Burns's. 
Among  those  second-hand  acting-figures,  mimes  for 
most  part,  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  once  more  a 
giant  Original  Man;  one  of  those  men  who  reach 
down  to  perennial  Deeps,  who  take  rank  with  the 
Heroic  among  men:  and  he  was  born  in  a  poor  Ayr- 
shire hut.  The  largest  soul  of  all  the  British  lands 
came  among  us  in  the  shape  of  a  hard-handed  Scot- 
tish Peasant. — His  Father,  a  poor  toiling  man,  tried 
various  things;  did  not  succeed  in  any;  was  involved 
in  continual  difficulties.  The  Steward,  Factor  as  the 
Scotch  call  him,  used  to  send  letters  and  threaten- 
ings,  Burns  says,  "which  threw  us  all  into  tears/' 
The  brave,  hard-toiling,  hard-suffering  Father,  his 
brave  heroine  of  a  wife;  and  those  children,  of  whom 
Robert  was  one !  In  this  Earth,  so  wide  otherwise, 
no  shelter  for  them.  The  letters  "  threw  us  all  into 
tears :"  figure  it.  The  brave  Father,  1  say  always; — 
a  silent  Hero  and  poet;  without  whom  the  son  had 
never  been  a  speaking  one!  Burns's  Schoolmaster 
came  afterwards  to  London, learned  what  good  society 
was;  but  declares  that  in  no  meeting  of  men  did  he 
ever  enjoy  better  discourse  than  at  the  hearth  of  this 
peasant.  And  his  poor  "  seven  acres  of  nursery- 
ground,"  nor  the  miserable  patch  of  clay-farm,  nor 
any  thing  he  tried  to  get  a  living  by,  would  prosper 
with  him ;  he  had  a  sore  unequal  battle  all  his  days. 


LECT.  V.       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.  293 

But  he  stood  to  it  valiantly ;  a  wise,  faithful,unconquer- 
able  man; — swallowing  down  how  many  sore  suffer- 
ings daily  into  silence;  fighting  like  an  unseen  Hero, 
— nobody  publishing  newspaper-paragraphs  about 
his  nobleness;  voting  pieces  of  plate  to  him!  How- 
ever, he  was  not  lost;  nothing  is  lost.  Robert 
is  there;  the  outcome  of  him, — and  indeed  of  many 
generations  of  such  as  him. 

This  Burns  appeared  under  every  disadvantage: 
uninstructed,  poor,  born  only  to  hard  manual  toil; 
and  writing  when  it  came  to  that,  m  a  rustic,  special 
dialect,  known  only  to  a  small  province  of  the  coun- 
try he  lived  in.  Had  he  written,  even  what  he  did 
write,  in  the  general  language  of  England,  I  doubt 
not  he  had  already  become  universally  recognised  as 
being,  or  capable  to  be,  one  of  our  greatest  men. 
That  he  should  have  tempted  so  many  to  penetrate 
through  the  rough  husk  of  that  dialect  of  his,  is  proof 
that  there  lay  something  far  from  common  within  it. 
He  has  gained  a  certain  recognition,  and  is  continu- 
ing to  do  so  over  all  quarters  of  our  wide  Saxon  world: 
wheresoever  a  Saxon  dialect  is  spoken,  it  begins  to 
be  understood,  by  personal  inspection  of  this  and  the 
other,  that  one  of  the  most  considerable  Saxon  men 
of  the  Eighteenth  century  was  an  Ayrshire  Peasant 
named  Robert  Burns.  Yes,  I  will  say,  here  too  was 
a  piece  of  the  right  Saxon  stuff:  strong  as  the  Harz- 
rock,  rooted  in  the  depths  of  the  world; — rock,  yet 
with  wells  of  living  softness  in  it!  A  wild  im- 
petuous whirlwind  in  passion  and  faculty  slumbered 
quiet  there;  such  heavenly  melody  dwelling  in  the 
heart  of  it.  A  noble  rough  genuineness;  homely, 
rustic,  honest;  true  simplicity  of  strength;  with  its 
20 


234       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

lightning-fire,  with  its  soft  dewy  pity; — like  the  old 
Norse  Thor,  the  Peasant-god  ! — 

Burns's  Brother  Gilbert,  a  man  of  much  sense  and 
worth,  has  told  me  that  Robert,  in  his  young  days, 
in  spite  of  their  hardship,  was  usually  the  gayest  of 
speech;  a  fellow  of  infinite  frolic,  laughter,  sense,  and 
heart;  far  pleasanter  to  hear  there,  stripped  cutting 
peats  in  the  bog,  or  such  like,  than  he  ever  after- 
wards knew  him.  I  can  well  believe  it.  This  basis 
of  mirth,  ("fond  gaillard"  as  old  Marquis  Mirabeau 
calls  it,)  a  primal  element  of  sunshine  and  joyful- 
ness,  coupled  with  his  other  deep  and  earnest  qua- 
lities, is  one  of  the  most  attractive  characteristics  of 
Burns.  A  large  fund  of  hope  dwells  in  him:  spite 
of  his  tragical  history,  he  is  not  a  mourning  man.  He 
shakes  his  sorrows  gallantly  aside;  bounds  forth  vic- 
torious over  them.  It  is  as  the  lion  shaking  "dew- 
drops  from  his  mane;"  as  the  swift-bounding  horse, 
that  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear.  But  indeed, 
Hope,  Mirth,  of  the  sort  like  Burns's,  are  they  not 
the  outcome  properly  of  warm  generous  affection, — 
such  as  is  the  beginning  of  all  to  every  man? 

You  would  think  it  strange  if  I  called  Burns  the 
most  gifted  British  soul  we  had  in  all  that  century  of 
his:  and  yet  I  believe  the  day  is  coming  when  there 
will  be  little  danger  in  saying  so.  His  writings,  all 
that  he  did  under  such  obstructions,  are  only  a  poor 
fragment  of  him.  Professor  Stewart  remarked  very 
justly,  what  indeed  is  true  of  all  Poets  good  for  much, 
that  his  poetry  was  not  any  particular  faculty;  but 
the  general  result  of  a  naturally  vigorous  original 
mind  expressing  itself  in  that  way.  Burns's  gifts, 
expressed  in  conversation,  are  the  theme  of  all  that 
ever  heard  him.     All  kinds  of  gifts:  from  the  grace- 


LECT.  V.   THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.      235 

fullest  utterances  of  courtesy,  to  the  highest  fire  of 
passionate  speech;  loud  floods  of  mirth,  soft  wait- 
ings of  affection,  laconic  emphasis,  clear  piercing  in- 
sight: all  was  in  him.  Witty  duchesses  celebrate 
him  as  a  man  whose  speech  "led  them  off  their  feet." 
This  is  beautiful:  but  still  more  beautiful  that  which 
Mr.  Lockhart  has  recorded,  which  I  have  more  than 
once  alluded  to,  How  the  waiters  and  ostlers  at  inns 
would  get  out  of  bed,  and  come  crowding  to  hear 
this  man  speak!  Waiters  and  ostlers: — they  too 
were  men,  and  here  was  a  man !  I  have  heard  much 
about  his  speech;  but  one  of  the  best  things  I  ever 
heard  of  it  was,  last  year,  from  a  venerable  gentle- 
man long  familiar  with  him.  That  it  was  speech 
distinguished  by  always  having  something  in  it.  "He 
spoke  rather  little  than  much,"  this  old  man  told 
me;  "sat  rather  silent  in  those  early  days,  as  in  the 
company  of  persons  above  him;  and  always  when 
he  did  speak,  it  was  to  throw  new  light  on  the  mat- 
ter." I  know  not  why  any  one  should  ever  speak 
otherwise! — But  if  we  look  at  his  general  force  of 
soul,  his  healthy  robustness  every  way,  the  rugged 
downrightness,  penetration,  generous  valour  and 
manfulness  that  was  in  him, — where  shall  we  readi- 
ly  find  a  better  gifted  man? 

Among  the  great  men  of  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
I  sometimes  feel  as  if  Burns  might  be  found  to  resem- 
ble Mirabeau  more  than  any  other.  They  differ 
widely  in  vesture;  yet  look  at  them  intrinsically. 
There  is  the  same  burly,  thick-necked  strength  of 
body  as  of  soul; — built,  in  both  cases,  on  what  the 
old  Marquis  calls  a  fond  gaillard.  By  nature,  by 
course  of  breeding,  indeed  by  nation,  Mirabeau  has 
much  more   of  bluster;  a   noisy,  forward  unrest- 


236       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

ing  man.  But  the  characteristic  of  Mirabeau  too  is 
veracity  and  sense,  power  of  true  insight,  superiori- 
ty of  vision.  The  thing  that  he  says  is  worth  re- 
membering. It  is  a  flash  of  insight  into  some  object 
or  other:  so  do  both  these  men  speak.  The  same 
raging  passions;  capable  too  in  both  of  manifesting 
themselves  as  the  tenderest  noble  affections.  Wit, 
wild  laughter,  energy,  directness,  sincerity;  these 
were  in  both.  The  types  of  the  two  men  were  not 
dissimilar.  Burns  too  could  have  governed,  debated 
in  National  Assemblies;  politicized  as  few  could. 
Alas,  the  courage  which  had  to  exhibit  itself  in  cap- 
ture of  smuggling  schooners  in  the  Solway  Frith; 
in  keeping  silence  over  so  much,  where  no  good 
speech,  but  only  inarticulate  rage  was  possible:  this 
might  have  bellowed  forth  Ushers  de  Breze  and  the 
like,  and  made  itself  visible  to  all  men,  in  managing 
of  kingdoms,  in  ruling  of  great  and  ever-memorable 
epochs!  But  they  said  to  him  reprovingly,  his  Offi- 
cial Superiors  said,  and  wrote :  "  You  are  to  work, 
not  think. "  Of  your  thinking  faculty,  the  greatest 
in  this  land,  we  have  no  need;  you  are  to  gauge 
beer  there;  for  that  only  are  you  wanted.  Very 
notable; — and  worth  mentioning,  though  we  know 
what  is  to  be  said  and  answered !  As  if  Thought, 
Power  of  Thinking,  were  not,  at  all  times,  in  all 
places  and  situations  of  the  world,  precisely  the  thing 
that  was  wanted.  The  fatal  man,  is  he  not  alwa}<  s 
the  unthinking  man,  the  man  who  cannot  think  and 
see;  but  only  grope,  and  hallucinate,  and  missee 
the  nature  of  the  thing  he  works  with?  He  missees 
it,  mistakes  it,  as  we  say;  takes  it  for  one  thing,  and 
it  is  another  thing, — and  leaves  him  standing  like  a 
Futility  there!     He  is  the    fatal  man;   unutterably 


LECT.  V.     THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OE  LETTERS.  537 

fatal,  put  in  the  high  places  of  men.— Why  com- 
plain of  this?  say  some.  Strength  is  mournfully 
denied  its  arena;  that  was  true  from  of  old.  Doubt- 
less; and  the  worse  for  the  arena,  say  I !  Complain- 
ing profits  little;  stating  of  the  truth  may  profit. 
That  a  Europe,  with  its  French  Revolution  just 
breaking  out,  finds  no  need  of  a  Burns  except  for 
gauging  beer, — is  a  thing  I,  for  one,  cannot  rejoice 
at!— 

Once  more  we  have  to  sa3T  here  that  the  chief 
quality  of  Burns  is  the  sincerity  of  him.  So  in  his 
Poetry,  in  his  Life.  The  Song  he  sings  is  not  of 
fantasticalities;  it  is  of  a  thing  felt,  really  there; 
the  prime  merit  of  this,  as  of  all  in  him,  and  of  his 
Life  generally,  is  truth.  The  life  of  Burns  is  what 
we  may  call  a  great  tragic  sincerity.  A  sort  of  savage 
sincerity, — not  cruel,  far  from  that;  but  wild,  wrest- 
ling naked  with  the  truth  of  things.  In  that  sense, 
there  is  something  of  the  savage  in  all  great  men. 

Hero-worship, — Odin,  Burns?  Well;  these  Men 
of  Letters  too  were  not  without  a  kind  of  Hero-wor- 
ship: but  what  a  strange  condition  has  that  got  into 
now!  The  waiters  and  ostlers  of  Scotch  inns,  prj^- 
ing  about  the  door,  eager  to  catch  any  word  that  fell 
from  Burns,  were  doing  unconscious  reverence  to  the 
Heroic.  Johnson  had  his  Boswell  for  worshipper. 
*- Rousseau  had  worshippers  enough ;  princes  calling 
on  him  in  his  mean  garret ;  the  great,  the  beautiful 
doing  reverence  to  the  poor  moon-struck  man.  For 
himself  a  most  portentous  contradiction ;  the  two 
ends  of  his  life  not  to  be  brought  into  harmony.  He 
sits  at  the  tables  of  grandees ;  and  has  to  copy  mu- 
sic for  his  own  living.  He  cannot  even  get  his  music 
copied :  "  By  dint  of  dining  out,"  says  he,  "  I  run 
20* 


23S  THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

the  risk  of  dying  by  starvation  at  home."  For  his 
worshippers  too  a  most  questionable  thing  !  If  doing 
Hero-worship  well  or  badly  be  the  test  of  vital  well- 
being  or  ill-being  to  a  generation,  can  we  say,  that 
these  generations  are  very  first-rate? — And  yet  our 
heroic  Men  of  Letters  do  teach,  govern,  are  kings, 
priests,  or  what  you  like  to  call  them;  intrinsically 
there  is  no  preventing  it  by  any  means  whatever. 
;  The  world  has  to  obey  him  who  thinks  and  sees  in 
the  world.  The  world  can  alter  the  manner  of  that ; 
can  either  have  it  as  blessed  continuous  summer  sun- 
shine, or  as  unblessed  black  thunder  and  tornado, — 
with  unspeakable  difference  of  profit  for  the  world ! 
The  manner  of  it  is  very  alterable;  the  matter  and 
fact  of  it  not,  by  any  power  under  the  sky.  Light; 
or  failing  that,  lightning:  the  world  can  take  its 
choice.  Not  whether  we  call  an  Odin  god,  prophet, 
priest,  or  what  we  call  him:  but  whether  we  believe 
the  word  he  tells  us :  there  it  all  lies.  If  it  be  a  true 
word,  we  shall  have  to  believe  it;  believing  it,  we 
shall  have  to  do  it.  What  name  or  welcome  we  give 
him  or  it,  is  a  point  that  concerns  ourselves  mainly. 
It,  the  new  Truth,  new,  deeper  revealing  of  the 
Secret  of  this  Universe,  is  verily  of  the  nature  of  a 
message  from  on  high;  and  must  and  will  have  itself 

obeyed. 

My  last  remark  is  on  that  notablest  phasis  of 
Burns's  history,  his  visit  to  Edinburgh.  Often  it 
seems  to  me  as  if  his  demeanour  there  were  the  high- 
est proof  he  gave  of  what  a  fund  of  worth  and  ge- 
nuine manhood  was  in  him.  If  we  think  of  it,  few 
heavier  burdens  could  be  laid  on  the  strength  of  a 
man.  So  sudden;  all  common  Lionism,  which 
ruins  innumerable  men,  was  as  nothing  to  this.     It  is 


LECT.  V.   THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS.      239 

as  if  Napoleon  had  been  made  a  King  of,  not  gradu- 
ally, but  at  once  from  the  Artillery  Lieutenancy  in 
the  Regiment  La  Fere.  Burns,  still  only  in  his 
twenty-seventh  year,  is  no  longer  even  a  ploughman; 
he  is  flying  to  the  West  Indies  to  escape  disgrace  and 
a  jail.  This  month  he  is  a  ruined  peasant,  his  wages 
seven  pounds  a  year,  and  these  gone  from  him :  next 
month  he  is  in  the  blaze  of  rank  and  beauty,  hand- 
ing down  jewelled  Duchesses  to  dinner;  the  cyno- 
sure of  all  eyes !  Adversity  is  sometimes  hard  upon 
a  man;  but  for  one  man  who  can  stand  prosperity, 
there  are  a  hundred  that  will  stand  adversity.  I  ad- 
mire much  the  way  in  which  Burns  met  all  this. 
Perhaps  no  man  one  could  point  out,  was  ever  so 
sorely  tried,  and  so  little  forgot  himself.  Tranquil, 
unastonished;  not  abashed,  not  inflated,  neither 
awkwardness  nor  affectation:  he  feels  that  he  there  is 
the  man  Robert  Burns;  that  the  frank  is  but  the 
guinea-stamp;'-'  that  the  celebrity  is  but  the  candle- 
light, which  will  show  what  man,  not  in  the  least 
make  him  a  better  or  other  man !  Alas,  it  may  rea- 
dily, unless  he  look  to  it,  make  him  a  worse  man;  a 
wretched  inflated  wind-bag, — inflated  till  he  burst 
and  become  a  dead  lion;  for  whom,  as  some  one  has 
said,  "  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  body;"  worse 
than  a  living  dog!     Burns  is  admirable  here. 

And  yet,  alas,  as  1  have  observed  elsewhere,  these 
Lion-hunters  were  the  ruin  and  death  of  Burns.  It 
was  they  that  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to  live! 
They  gathered  round  him  in  his  farm;  hindered  his 
industry;  no  place  was  remote  enough  for  them.  He 
could  not  get  his  Lionism  forgotten,  honestly  as  he 
was  disposed  to  do  so.  He  falls  into  discontents,  into 
miseries,  faults;  the  world  getting  ever  more  deso- 


2  40       THE  HERO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS. 

late  for  him;  health,  character,  peace  of  mind,  all 
gone; — solitary  enough  now.  It  is  tragical  to  think 
of !  These  men  came  but  to  see  him  ;  it  was  out  of  no 
sympathy  with  him,  nor  no  hatred  to  him.  They 
came  to  get  a  little  amusement;  they  got  their  amuse- 
ment;— and  the  Hero's  life  went  for  it ! 

Richter  says,  in  the  island  of  Sumatra  there  is  a 
kind  of  "Light-chafers,"  large  Fire-flies, which  peo- 
ple stick  upon  spits,  and  illuminate  the  ways  with  at 
night.  Persons  of  condition  can  thus  travel  with  a 
pleasant  radiance,  which  they  much  admire.  Great 
honour  to  the  Fire-flies!     But — ! — 


LECTURE  VI. 

[Friday,  22d   May,1840.] 

THE    HERO    AS    KING. CROMWELL,    NAPOLEON: 

MODERN    REVOLUTIONISM. 

We  come  now  to  the  last  form  of  Heroism ;  that 
which  we  call  Kingship.  The  Commander  over 
Men;  he  to  whose  will  our  wills  are  to  be  subordinated, 
and  loyally  surrender  themselves,  and  find  their  wel- 
fare in  doing  so,  may  be  reckoned  the  most  impor- 
tant of  Great  Men.  He  is  practically  the  summary 
for  us  of  all  the  various  figures  of  Heroism;  Priest, 
Teacher,  whatsoever  of  earthly  or  of  spiritual  dignity 
we  can  fancy  to  reside  in  a  man,  imbodies  itself 
here,  to  command  over  us,  furnish  us  with  constant 
practical  teaching,  tell  us  for  the  day  and  hour  what 
we  are  to  do.  He  is  called  Rex,  Regulator,  Roi: 
our  own  name  is  still  better;  King,  Conning,  which 
means  Can-ning,  Able-man. 

Numerous  Considerations,  pointing  towards  deep, 
questionable,  and  indeed  unfathomable  regions,  pre- 
sent themselves  here:  on  the  most  of  which  we  must 
resolutely  for  the  present  forbear  to  speak  at  all. 

As  Burke  said  that  perhaps  fair  Trial  by  Jury  was 
the  soul  of  Government,  and  that  all  legislation,  ad- 
ministration, parliamentary  debating,  and  the  rest  of 
it,  went  on,  in  order  "to  bring  twelve  impartial  men 
into  a  jury-box;" — so,  by  much  stronger  reason,  may 


242  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

I  say  here,  that  the  finding  of  your  Ableman,  and 
getting  him  invested  with  the  symbols  of  ability,  with 
dignity,  worship,  (worth-ship,)  royalty,  knighthood, 
or  whatever  we  call  it,  so  that  he  may  actually  have 
room  to  guide  according  to  his  faculty  of  doing  it, — 
is  the  business,  well  or  ill  accomplished,  of  all  social 
procedure  whatsoever  in  this  world !  Hustings- 
speeches,  Parliamentary  motions,  Reform  Bills, 
French  Revolutions,  all  mean  at  heart  this;  or  else 
nothing.  Find  in  any  country  the  Ablest  Man  that  ex- 
ists there;  raise  him  to  the  supreme  place,  and  loyally 
reverence  him :  you  have  a  perfect  government  for 
that  country;  no  ballot-box,  parliamentary  eloquence, 
voting,  constitution-building,  or  other  machinery 
whatsoever  can  improve  it  a  whit.  It  is  in  the  per- 
fect state;  an  ideal  country.  The  Ablest  Man;  he 
means  also  the  truest-hearted,  justest,  the  Noblest 
Man;  what  he  tells  us  to  do  must  be  precisely  the 
wisest,  fittest,  that  we  could  any  where  or  any  how 
learn; — the  thing  which  it  will  in  all  ways  behoove 
us,  with  right  loyal  thankfulness,  and  nothing  doubt- 
ing, to  do!  Our  doing  and  life  were  then,  so  far  as 
government  could  regulate  it,  well  regulated;  that 
were  the  ideal  of  constitutions. 

Alas,  we  know  very  well  that  Ideals  can  never  be 
completely  imbodied  in  practice.  Ideals  must  ever 
lie  a  very  great  way  off;  and  we  will  right  thank- 
fully content  ourselves  with  any  not  intolerable  ap- 
proximation thereto!  Let  no  man,  as  Schiller  says, 
too  querulously  "  measure  by  a  scale  of  perfection 
the  meagre  product  of  reality  "  in  this  poor  world  of 
ours.  We  will  esteem  him  no  wise  man;  we  will 
esteem  him  a  sickly,  discontented,  foolish  man.  And 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  243 

that  Ideals  do  exist;  that  if  they  be  not  approxi- 
mated to  at  all,  the  whole  matter  goes  to  wreck ! 
Infallibly.  No  bricklayer  builds  a  wall  perfectly  per- 
pendicular, mathematically  this  is  not  possible;  a 
certain  degree  of  perpendicularity  suffices  him ;  and 
he,  like  a  good  bricklayer,  who  must  have  done  with 
his  job,  leaves  it  so.  And  yet  if  he  sway  too  much 
from  the  perpendicular;  above  all,  if  he  throw  plum- 
met and  level  quite  away  from  him,  and  pile  brick 
on  brick  heedless,  just  as  it  comes  to  hand — !  Such 
bricklayer,  I  think,  is  in  a  bad  way.  He  has  for* 
gotten  himself:  but  the  law  of  Gravitation  does  not 
forget  to  act  on  him;  he  and  his  wall  rush  down  into 
confused  welter  of  ruin!  — 

This  is  the  history  of  all  rebellions,  French  Revo- 
lutions, social  explosions  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 
You  have  put  the  too  Unable  Man  at  the  head  of 
affairs!  The  too  ignoble,  unvaliant,  fatuous  man. 
You  have  forgotten  that  there  is  any  rule,  or  natural 
necessity  whatever,  of  putting  the  Able  Man  there. 
Brick  must  lie  on  brick  as  it  may  and  can.  Unable 
Simulacrum  of  Ability,  quack,  in  a  word,  must  adjust 
himself  with  quack,  in  all  manner  of  administration 
of  human  things; — which  accordingly  lie  unadminis- 
tered,  fermenting  into  unmeasured  masses  of  failure, 
of  indigent  misery:  in  the  outward,  and  in  the  in- 
ward or  spiritual,  miserable  millions  stretch  out  the 
hand  for  their  due  supply,  and  it  is  not  there.  The 
"law  of  gravitation  "  acts;  Nature's  laws  do  none  of 
them  forget  to  act.  The  miserable  millions  burst 
forth  into  Sansculottism,  or  some  other  sort  of  mad- 
ness: bricks  and  bricklayer  lie  as  a  fatal  chaos! — 

Much  sorry  stuff,  written  some  hundred  years  ago 
or  more,  about  the  "Divine  right  of  Kings,"  moulders 


244  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

unread  now  in  the  Public  Libraries  of  this  country. 
Far  be  it  from  us  to  disturb  the  calm  process  by 
which  it  is  disappearing  harmlessly  from  the  earth,  in 
those  repositories!     At  the  same  time  not  to  let  the 
immense  rubbish  go  without  leaving  us,  as  it  ought, 
some  soul  of  it  behind, — I  will  say  that  it  did  mean 
something;  something  true,  which  it  is  important  for 
us  and  all  men  to  keep  in  mind.     To  assert  that  in 
whatever  man  you  choose  to  lay  hold  of,  (by  this  or 
the  other  plan  of  clutching  at  him;)  and  clapped  a 
round  piece  of  metal   on  the  head   of,  and   called 
King, — there  straightway  came  to  reside  a  divine 
virtue,  so  that  he  became  a  kind  of  god,  and  a  Divi- 
nity inspired  him  with  faculty  and  right  to  rule  over 
you  to  all  lengths:  this, — what  can  we  do  with  this 
but  leave  it  to  rot  silently  in  the   Public  Libraries? 
But  I  will  say  withal,  and  that  is  what  these  Divine- 
right  men  meant,  That  in  Kings,  and  in  all  human 
Authorities,  and  relations  that  men,  god-created,  can 
form   among  each  other,  there  is  verily  a  Divine 
Right  or  else  a  Diabolical  Wrong;  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  !     For  it  is  false  altogether,  what  the  last 
Skeptical   Century  taught  us,  that  this  world  is  a 
steam  engine.     There  is  a  God  in  this  world:  and  a 
God's-sanction,  or  else  the  violation   of  such,  does 
look  out  from  all  ruling  and  obedience,  from  all 
moral  acts  of  men.    There  is  no  act  more  moral  be- 
tween men  than  that  of  rule  and  obedience.  -  Wo  to 
him  that  claims  obedience  when  it  is  not  due;   wo  to 
him  that  refuses  it  when  it  is!     God's  law  is  in  that, 
I  say,  however  the  Parchment-laws  may  run:  there 
is  a  Divine  Right  or  else  a  Diabolic  Wrong  at  the 
.  •  heart  of  every  claim  that  one  man   makes  upon  ano- 
ther. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  245 

It  can  do  none  of  us  harm  to  reflect  on  this:  in  all 
the  relations  of  life  it  will  concern  us ;  in  Loyalty 
and  Royalty,  the  highest  of  these.  I  esteem  the 
modern  error,  that  all  goes  by  self-interest  and  the 
checking  and  balancing  of  greedy  knaveries,  and 
that  in  short  there  is  nothing  divine  whatever  in  the 
association  of  men,  a  still  more  despicable  error,, 
natural  as  it  is  to  an  unbelieving  century,  than  that 
of  a  "divine  right"  in  people  called  Kings.  I  say, 
Find  me  the  true  Konning,  King,  or  Able-man,  and 
he  has  a  divine  right  over  me.  That  we  knew  in 
some  tolerable  measure  how  to  find  him,  and  that 
all  men  were  ready  to  acknowledge  his  divine  right 
when  found:  this  is  precisely  the  healing  which  a 
sick  world  is  every  where,  in  these  ages,  seeking 
after!  The  true  King,  as  guide  of  the  practical,  has 
ever  something  of  the  Pontiff  in  him, — guide  of  the 
spiritual,  from  which  all  practice  has  its  rise.  This 
too  is  a  true  saying.  That  the  King  is  head  of  the 
Church. — But  we  will  leave  the  Polemic  stuff  of  a 
dead  century  to  lie  quiet  on  its  book-shelves. 

Certainly  it  is  a  fearful  business,  that  of  having 
your  Able-man  to  seek,  and  not  knowing  in  what 
manner  to  proceed  about  it  L  That  is  the  world's 
sad  predicament  in  these  times  of  ours.  They  are 
times  of  revolution,  and  have  long  been.  The  brick- 
layer with  his  bricks,  no  longer  heedful  of  the  plum- 
met or  the  law  of  gravitation,  have  toppled,  tumbled, 
and  it  all  welters  as  we  see!  But  the  beginning  of 
it  was  not  the  French  Revolution;  that  is  rather  the 
end,  we  can  hope.  It  were  truer  to  say,  the  begin- 
ning was  three  centuries  farther  back:  in  the  refor- 
mation of  Luther.  That  the  thing  which  still  called 
21 


246  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

itself  Christian  Church  had  become  a  Falsehood,  and 
brazenly  went  about  pretending  to  pardon  men's 
sins  for  metallic  coined  money,  and  to  do  much  else 
which  in  the  everlasting  truth  of  Nature  it  did  not  now 
do:  here  lay  the  vital  malady.  The  inward  being 
wrong,  all  outward  went  ever  more  and  more  wrong. 
Belief  died  away;  all  was  Doubt,  Disbelief.  The 
builder  cast  away  his  plummet;  said  to  himself,  "What 
is  gravitation?  Brick  lies  on  brick  there!"  Alas, 
does  it  not  still  sound  strange  to  many  of  us,  the 
assertion  that  there  is  a  God's-truth  in  the  business 
of  god-created  men:  that  all  is  not  a  kind  of  grimace, 
an  "expediency,"  diplomacy,  one  knows  not  what ! — 
From  that  first  necessary  assertion  of  Luther's, 
"  You,  self-styled  Papa,  you  are  no  Father  in  God 
at  all;  you  are  a  Chimera,  whom  I  know  not  how 
to  name  in  polite  language!" — from  that  onwards  to 
the  shout  which  rose  round  Camille  Desmoulins  in 
the  Palais  Royal,  "  Jlux  amies!"  when  the  people 
had  burst  up  against  all  manner  of  Chimeras, — I 
find  a  natural  historical  sequence.  That  shout  too, 
so  frightful,  half-infernal,  was  a  great  matter.  Once 
more  the  voice  of  awakened  nations; — starting  con- 
fusedly as  out  of  nightmare,  as  out  of  death-sleep, 
into  some  dim  feeling  that  Life  wTas  real;  that  God's- 
world  was  not  an  expediency  and  diplomacy!  In- 
fernal;— yes,  since  they  would  not  have  it  otherwise. 
Infernal,  since  not  celestial  or  terrestrial!  ,  Hollow- 
ness,  insincerity  has  to  cease;  sincerity  of  some  sort 
has  to  begin.  Cost  what  it  may,  reigns  of  terror, 
horrors  of  French  Revolution  or  what  else,  we  have 
to  return  to  truth.  Here  is  a  Truth,  as  I  said  :  a 
Truth  clad  in  hell  fire,  since  they  would  not  but  have 
it  so! — 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  247 

A  common  theory  among  considerable  parties  of 
men  in  England  and  elsewhere  used  to  be,  that  the 
French  Nation  had  in  those  days,  as  it  were,  gone 
mad;  that  the  French  Revolution  was  a  general  act 
of  insanity,  a  temporary  conversion  of  France  and 
large  sections  of  the  world  into  a  kind  of  Bedlam. 
The  Event  had  risen  and  raged;  but  was  a  madness 
and  non-entity, — gone  now  happily  into  the  regions 
of  Dreams  and  the  Picturesque! — To  such  comforta- 
ble philosophers,  the  Three  days  of  July,  1830, 
must  have  been  a  surprising  phenomenon.  Here  is 
the  French  Nation  risen  again,  in  musketry  and 
death-struggle,  out  shooting  and  being  shot,  to  make 
that  same  mad  French  Revolution  good!  The  sons 
and  grandsons  of  those  men,  it  would  seem,  persist 
in  the  enterprise:  they  do  not  disown  it;  they  will 
have  it  made  good;  will  have  themselves  shot,  if  it 
be  not  made  good!  To  philosophers  who  had  made 
up  their  life-system  on  that  madness-quietus,  no 
phenomenon  could  be  more  alarming.  Poor  Nie- 
buhr,  they  say,  the  Prussian  professor  and  Historian, 
fell  broken-hearted  in  consequence;  sickened,  if  we 
can  believe  it,  and  died  of  the  Three  Days!  It 
was  surely  not  a  very  heroic  death; — little  better 
than  Racine's,  dying  because  Louis  Fourteenth 
looked  sternly  on  him  once.  The  world  had  stood 
some  considerable  shocks  in  its  time;  might  have 
been  expected  to  survive  the  Three  Days  too,  and 
be  found  turning  on  its  axis  after  even  them !  The 
Three  Days  told  all  mortals  that  the  old  French  Re- 
volution, mad  as  it  might  look,  was  not  a  transitory 
ebullition  of  Bedlam,  but  a  genuine  product  of  this 
Earth  where  we  all  live;  that  it  was  verily  a  Fact3 
and  the  world  in  general  would  do  well  every  where 
to  regard  it  as  such. 


24S  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Truly  without  the  French  Revolution,  one  would 
not  know  what  to  make  of  an  age  like  this  at  all. 
We  will  hail  the  French  Revolution  as  shipwrecked 
mariners  might  the  sternest  rock,  in  a  world  other- 
wise all  of  baseless  sea  and  waves.  A  true  Apoca- 
lj7pse,  though  a  terrible  one,  to  this  false  withered 
artificial  time;  testifying  once  more  that  Nature  is 
preternatural,  if  not  divine,  then  diabolic;  that  Sem- 
blance is  not  Reality;  that  it  has  to  become  Reality, 
or  the  world  will  take  fire  under  it, — burn  it  into  what 
it  is,  namely,  Nothing!  Plausibility  has  ended;  empty 
Routine  has  ended ;  much  has  ended.  This,  as  with 
a  Trump  of  Doom,  has  been  proclaimed  to  "all  men. 
'  They  are  the  wisest  who  will  learn  it  soonest*  Long 
confused  generations  before  it  be  learned;  peace  im- 
possible till  it  be!  The  earnest  man,  surrounded,  as 
ever,  with  a  world  of  inconsistencies,  can  await  pa- 
tiently, patiently  strive  to  do  his  work,  in  the  midst 
of  that.  Sentence  of  Death  is  written  down  in  Hea- 
ven against  all  that;  sentence  of  Death  is  now  pro- 
claimed on  the  Earth  against  it :  this  he  with  his  eyes 
may  see.  And  surely,  I  should  say,  considering  the 
other  side  of  the  matter,  what  enormous  difficulties 
lie  there,  and  how  fast,  fearfully  fast,  in  all  countries, 
the  inexorable  demand  for  solution  of  them  is  press- 
ing on, — he  may  easily  find  other  work  to  do  than 
labouring  in  the  Sansculottic  province  at  this  time  of 
day! 

To  me,  in  these  circumstances,  that  of  u  Hero-wor- 
ship n  becomes  a  fact  inexpressibly  precious;  the  most 
solacing  fact  one  sees  in  the  world  at  present.  There 
is  an  everlasting  hope  in  it  for  the  management  of 
the  world:  Had  all  traditions,  arrangements,  creeds, 
societies  that  men  ever  instituted,  sunk  away,  this 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  240 

would  remain.'-  The  certainty  of  Heroes  being  sent 
us ;  our  faculty,  our  necessity,  to  reverence  Heroes 
when  sent:  it  shines  like  a  pole-star  through  smoke- 
clouds,  dust-clouds,  and  all  manner  of  down-rushing 
and  conflagration. 

Hero-worship  would  have  sounded  very  strange  to 
those  workers  and  fighters  in  the  French  Revolution. 
Not  reverence  for  Great  Men;  not  any  hope,  or  be- 
lief, or  even  wish,  that  Great  Men  could  again  appear 
in  the  world !  Nature,  turned  into  a  "  Machine,"  was 
as  if  effete  now ;  could  not  any  longer  produce  Great 
Men : — I  can  tell  her,  she  may  give  up  the  trade  al- 
together, then  ;  we  cannot  do  without  Great  Men ! — 
But  neither  have  I  any  quarrel  with  that  of  "  Liberty 
and  Equality  ;"  with  the  faith  that,  wise  great  men 
being  impossible,  a  level  immensity  of  foolish  small 
men  would  suffice.  It  was  a  natural  faith  then  and 
there.  "  Liberty  and  Equality;  no  Authority  needed 
any  longer.  Hero-worship,  reverence  for  such  Au- 
thorities, has  proved  false,  is  itself  a  falsehood;  no 
more  of  it!;  We  have  had  such  forgeries,  we  will 
now  trust  nothing.  So  many  base-plated  coins  pass- 
ing in  the  market,  the  belief  has  now  become  common 
that  no  gold  any  longer  exists, — and  even  that  we 
can  do  very  well  without  gold  !" — I  find  this,  among 
other  things,  in  that  universal  cry  of  Liberty  and 
Equality;  and  find  it  very  natural,  as  matters  then 
stood. 

And  yet  surely  it  is  but  the  transition  from  false  to 
true.  Considered  as  the  whole  truth,  it  is  false  alto- 
gether;— the  product  of  entire  skeptical  blindness,  as 
yet  only  struggling  to  see.  Hero-worship  exists  for 
ever  and  every  where:  not  Loyalty  alone;  it  extends 
from  divine  adoration  down  to  the  lowest  practical 
51* 


250  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

regions  of  life.  "  Bending  before  men,"  if  it  is  not  to 
be  a  mere  empty  grimace,  better  dispensed  with  than 
practised,  is  Hero-worship;  a  recognition  that  there 
does  dwell  in  that  presence  of  our  brother  something 
divine;  that  every  created  man,  as  Novalis  said,  is 
a  "revelation  in  the  Flesh."  They  were  Poets  too, 
that  devised  all  those  graceful  courtesies  which  make 
life  noble!  Courtesy  is  not  a  falsehood  or  grimace; 
it  need  not  be  such.  And  Loyalty,  religious  Worship 
itself,  are  still  possible;  nay  still  inevitable. 

May  we  not  say,  moreover,  while  so  many  of  our 
late  Heroes  have  worked  rather  as  revolutionary  men, 
that  nevertheless  every  Great  Man,  every  genuine 
man,  is  by  the  nature  of  him  a  son  of  Order,  not  of 
Disorder?  It  is  a  tragical  position  for  a  true  man  to 
work  in  revolutions.  He  seems  an  anarchist;  and 
indeed  a  painful  element  of  anarchy  does  encumber 
him  atevery  step, — him  to  whose  whole  soul  anarchy 
is  hostile,  hateful.  His  mission  is  Order  ;  every  man's 
is.  He  is  here  to  make  what  was  disorderly,  chaotic, 
into  a  thing  ruled,  regular.  He  is  the  missionary  of 
Order.  Is  not  all  work  of  man  in  this  world  a  making 
of  Order?  The  carpenter  finds  rough  trees;  shapes 
them,  constrains  them  into  square  fitness,  into  pur- 
pose and  use.  We  are  all  born  enemies  of  Disorder; 
it  is  tragical  for  us  all  to  be  concerned  in  image- 
breaking  and  down-pulling;  for  the  Great  Man,  more 
a  man  than  we,  it  is  doubly  tragical. 

Thus  too  all  human  things,  maddest  French  Sans- 
culottism,  do  and  must  work  towards  order.  I  say, 
there  is  not  a  man  in  them,  raging  in  the  thickest  of 
the  madness,  but  is  impelled  withal,  at  all  moments, 
towards  Order.  His  very  life  means  that;  Disorder 
is  dissolution,  death.     No  chaos  but  it  seeks  a  centre 


&ECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  251 

to  revolve  round.  While  man  is  man,  some  Cromwell 
or  Napoleon  is  the  necessary  finish  of  a  Sansculot- 
tism. — Curious:  in  those  days  when  Hero-worship  was 
the  most  incredible  thing  to  every  one,  how  it  does 
come  out  nevertheless,  and  assert  itself  practically, 
in  a  way  which  all  have  to  credit.  Divine  right, 
take  it  on  the  great  scale,  is  found  to  mean  divine 
might  withal!  While  old  false  Formulas  are  getting 
trampled  every  where  into  destruction,  new  genuine 
Substances  unexpectedly  unfold  themselves  inde- 
structible. In  rebellious  ages,  when  Kingship  itself 
seems  dead  and  abolished,  Cromwell,  and  Napoleon 
step  forth  again  as  kings.  The  History  of  these  men 
is  what  we  have  now  to  look  at,  as  our  last  phasis  of 
Heroism.  The  old  ages  are  brought  back  to  us;  the 
manner  in  which  Kings  were  made  and  Kingship  it- 
self first  took  rise.,  is  again  exhibited  in  the  history 
of  these  Two. 

We  have  had  many  civil-wars  in  England;  wars 
<of  Red  and  White  Roses,  wars  of  Simon  de  Montfort, 
wars  enough,  which  are  not  very  memorable.  But 
that  war  of  the  Puritans  has  a  significance  which 
belongs  to  no  one  of  the  others.  Trusting  to  your 
candour,  which  will  suggest  on  the  other  side  what 
I  have  not  room  to  say,  I  will  call  it  a  section  once 
more  of  that  great  universal  war  which  alone  makes 
up  the  true  History  of  the  World, — the  war  of  Belief 
against  Unbelief]  The  struggle  of  men  intent  on  the 
real  essence  of  things,  against  men  intent  on  the  sem- 
blances and  forms  of  things.  The  Puritans,  to  many, 
seem  mere  savage  Iconoclasts,  fierce  destroyers  of 
Forms;  but  it  were  more  just  to  call  them  haters  of 
unlrue  Forms.  I  hope  we  know  how  to  respect  Laud 
and  his  King  as  well  as  them.     Poor  Laud  seems  to 


252  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

me  to  have  been  weak  and  ill-starred,  not  dishonest; 
an  unfortunate  Pedant  rather  than  any  thing  worse. 
His"  Dreams,"  and  superstitions,  at  which  they  laugh 
so,  have  an  affectionate,  loveable   kind   of  character. 
He  is  like  a  College-Tutor,  whose  whole  world  is 
forms,  College-rules;   whose  notion  is  that  these   are 
the  life  and  safety  of  the  world.      He  is  placed  sud- 
denly, with   that  unalterable  luckless  notion  of  his, 
at  the  head  not  of  a  College  but  of  a  Nation,  to  regu- 
late  the   most    complex   deep-reaching  interests   of 
men.     He  thinks  they  ought  to  go  by  the  old  decent 
regulations;  nay,  that  their  salvation  would    lie  in 
extending  and  improving  these.     Like  a  weak  man, 
he  drives  with  spasmodic  vehemence  towards  his  pur- 
pose; cramps  himself  to  it,  heeding  no  voice  of  pru- 
dence, no  cry  of  pity:  He  will  have  his  College-rules 
obeyed  by  his   Collegians;  that  first-;   and  till   that, 
nothing.    He  is  an  ill-starred  Pedant,  as  I  said.     He 
would  have  it  the  world  was  a  College  of  that  kind  , 
and  the  world  iccts  not  that.     Alas,  was  not  his  doom 
stern  enough?     Whatever  wrongs  he  did,  were  they 
not  all  frightfully  avenged  on  him? 

It  is  meritorious  to  insist  on  forms;  Religion  and 
all  else  naturally  clothes  itself  in  forms.  Every  where 
the  formed  world  is  the  only  habitable  one.  The 
naked  formlessness  of  Puritanism  is  not  the  thing  I 
praise  in  the  Puritans;  it  is  the  thing  I  pity, — prais- 
ing only  the  spirit  which  had  rendered  that  inevi- 
table! All  substances  clothe  themselves  in  forms : 
but  there  are  suitable  true  forms,  and  then  there  are 
untrue,  unsuitable.  As  the  briefest  definition,  one 
might  say,  Forms  which  grow  round  a  substance,  if 
we  rightly  understand  that,  will  correspond  to  the  real 
nature  and  purport  of  it,  will  be  true,  good;  forms 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  253 

which  are  consciously  put  round  a  substance,  bad.  1 
invite  you  to  reflect  on  this.  It  distinguishes  true  from 
false  in  Ceremonial  Form,  earnest  solemnity  from 
empty  pageant,  in  all  human  things. 

There  must  be  a  veracity,  a  natural  spontaneity  In 
forms.  In  the  commonest  meeting  of  men,  a  person 
making,  what  we  call,  "set  speeches/'  is  not  he  an 
offence?  In  the  mere  drawing-room,  whatsoever 
courtesies  you  see  to  be  grimaces,  prompted  by  no 
spontaneous  reality  within,  are  a  thing  you  wish  to 
get  away  from;  But  suppose  now  it  were  some  mat- 
ter of  vital  concernment,  some  transcendent  matter 
(as  Divine  worship  is,)  about  whieh  your  whole  soul, 
struck  dumb  with  its  excess  of  feeling,  knew  not  how 
to  form  itself  into  utterance  at  all,  and  preferred 
formless  silence  to  any  utterance  there  possible, — 
what  should  we  say  of  a  man  coming  forward  to  re- 
present or  utter  it  for  you  in  the  way  of  upholsterer- 
mummery?  Such  a  man, — let  him  depart  swiftly, 
if  he  love  himself!  You  have  lost  your  only  son; 
are  mute,  struck  down,  without  even  tears:  an  im- 
portunate man  importunately  offers  to  celebrate  Fu- 
neral Games  for  him  in  the  manner  of  the  Greeks! 
Such  mummery  is  not  only  not  to  be  accepted;  it  is 
hateful,  unendurable.  It  is  what  the  old  Prophets 
called  "  Idolatry,"  worshipping  of  hollow  shows;  what 
all  earnest  men  do  and  will  reject.  We  can  partly 
understand  what  those  poor  Puritans  meant.  Laud 
dedicating  that  St.  Catherine  Creed's  Church,  in  the 
manner  we  have  it  described;  with  his  multiplied 
ceremonial  bowings,  gesticulations,  exclamations! 
surely  it  is  rather  the  rigorous  formal  Pedant,  intent 
on  his  st  College-rules,"  than  the  earnest  Prophet,  in- 
lent  on  the  essence  of  the  matter! 


254  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Puritanism  found  such  forms  insupportable;  tram- 
pled on  such  forms; — we  have  to  excuse  it  for  saying, 
No  form  at  all  rather  than  such!  It  stood  preaching 
in  its  bare  pulpit,  with  nothing  but  the  Bible  in  its 
hand.  Nay,  a  man  preaching  from  his  earnest  soul 
into  the  earnest  souls  of  men  :  is  not  this  virtually  the 
essence  of  all  Churches  whatsoever?*  The  nakedest, 
savagest  reality,  I  say,  is  preferable  to  any  semblance, 
however  dignified.  Besides,  it  will  clothe  itself  with 
due  semblance  by  and  by,  if  it  be  real.  No  fear  of 
that;  actually  no  fear  at  all.  Given  the  living  man, 
there  will  be  found  clothes  for  him;  he  will  find  him- 
self clothes.  But  the  suit-of-clothes  pretending  that 
it  is  both  clothes  and  man — !  We  cannot  "  fight  the 
French"  by  three  hundred  thousand  red  uniforms; 
there  must  be  men  in  the  inside  of  them !  Semblance, 
1  assert,  must  actually  not  divorce  itself  from  Reality. 
If  Semblance  do, — why  then  there  must  be  men 
found  to  rebel  against  Semblance,  for  it  has  become 
a  lie!  These  two  Antagonisms  at  war  here,  in  the 
case  of  Laud  and  the  Puritans,  are  as  old  nearly  as 
the  world.  They  went  to  fierce  battle  over  England 
in  that  age;  and  fought  out  their  confused  controversy 
to  a  certain  length,  with  many  results  for  all  of  us. 

In  the  age  which  directly  followed  that  of  the  Pu- 
ritans, their  cause  or  themselves  were  little  likely  to 
have  justice  done  them.  Charles  Second  and  his 
Rochesters  were  not  the  kind  of  men  you  would  set 
to  judge  what  the  worth  or  meaning  of  such  men 
might  have  been.  That  there  could  be  any  faith  or 
truth  in  the  life  of  a  man  was  what  these  poor  Roches- 
ters, and  the  age  they  ushered  in,  had  forgotten. 
Puritanism  was  hung  on  gibbets, — like  the  bones  of 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  255 

the  leading  Puritans.  Its  work  nevertheless  went  on 
accomplishing  itself.  All  true  work  of  a  man,  hang 
the  author  of  it  on  what  gibbet  you  like,  must  and 
will  accomplish  itself.  We  have  our  Habeas  Corpus, 
our  free  Representation  of  the  People;  acknowledg- 
ment, wide  as  the  world,  that  all  men  are,  or  else 
must,  shall,  and  will  become,  what  we  call  free 
men; — men  with  their  life  grounded  on  reality  and 
justice,  not  on  tradition,  which  has  become  unjust 
and  a  chimera  !  This  in  part,  and  much  besides  this, 
was  the  wx^rk  of  the  Puritans. 

And  indeed,  as  these  things  became  gradually  ma- 
nifest, the  character  of  the  Puritans  began  to  clear 
itself.  Their  memories  were,  one  after  another,  taken 
down  from  the  gibbet;  nay,  a  certain  portion  of  them 
are  now,  in  these  days,  as  good  as  canonized.  Eliot, 
Hampden;  Pym,  nay  Ludlow,  Hutcheson,  Vane  him- 
self, are  admitted  to  be  a  kind  of  Heroes;  political 
Conscript  Fathers,  to  whom  in  no  small  degree  we 
owe  what  makes  us  a  free  England:  it  would  not  be 
safe  for  any  body  to  designate  these  men  as  wicked. 
Few  Puritans  of  note  but  find  their  apologists  some- 
where, and  have  a  certain  reverence  paid  them  by 
earnest  men.  One  Puritan,  I  think,  and  almost  he 
alone,  our  poor  Cromwell,  seems  to  hang  yet  on  the 
gibbet,  and  find  no  hearty  apologist  any  where.  Him 
neither  saint  nor  sinner  will  acquit  of  great  wicked- 
ness. A  man  of  ability,  infinite  talent,  courage,  and 
so  forth:  but  he  betrayed  the  Cause!  Selfish  ambi- 
tion, dishonesty,  duplicity;  a  fierce,  coarse,  hypocri- 
tical Tartuffe;  turning  all  that  noble  Struggle  for 
constitutional  Liberty  into  a  sorry  farce  played  for 
his  own  benefit:  this  and  worse  is  the  character  they 
give  of  Cromwell.     And  then  there  come  contrasts 


256  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

with  Washington  and  others;  above  all,  with  these 
noble  Pyms  and  Hampdens,  whose  noble  work  he 
stole  for  himself,  and  ruined  into  a  futility  and  de- 
formity. 

This  view  of  Cromwell  seems  to  me  the  unnatu- 
ral product  of  a  century  like  the  Eighteenth.  As 
we  said  of  the  valet,  so  of  the  Skeptic:  He  does 
not  know  a  Hero  when  he  sees  him !  The  Valet 
expected  purple  mantles,  gilt  sceptres,  body-guards 
and  flourishes  of  trumpets:  the  Skeptic  of  the 
Eighteenth  century  looks  for  regulated  respectable 
Formulas,  "  Principles,''  or  what  else  he  may  call 
them;  a  style  of  speech  and  conduct  which  has  got 
to  seem  "  respectable,"  which  can  plead  for  itself  in 
a  handsome  articulate  manner,  and  gain  the  suffrages 
of  an  enlightened  skeptical  Eighteenth  century!  It 
is,  at  bottom,  the  same  thing  that  both  the  Valet  and 
he  expect:  the  garnitures  of  some  acknowledged 
royalty,  which  then  they  will  acknowledge!  The 
King  coming  to  them  in  the  rugged  tmformulistic 
state  shall  be  no  King. 

For  my  own  share,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  or  in- 
sinuate a  word  of  disparagement  against  such  charac- 
ters as  Hampden,  Eliot,  Pym;  whom  I  believe  to 
have  been  right  worthy  and  useful  men.  I  have 
read  diligently  what  books  and  documents  about  them 
I  could  come  at;  with  the  honestest  wish  to  admire, 
to  love,  and  worship  them  like  Heroes;  but  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  if  the  real  truth  must  be  told,  with  very 
indifferent  success !  At  bottom,  I  found  that  it  would 
not  do.  They  are  very  noble  men  these;  step  along 
in  their  stately  way,  with  their  measured  euphuisms, 
philosophies,  parliamentary  eloquences,  Ship-mo- 
neys, Monarchies  of  Man;  a  most  constitutional,  un- 


JLECT.   VI.  THE   HERO  AS  KING.  257 

blameable,  dignified  set  of  men.  But  the  heart  re- 
mains cold  before  them;  the  fancy  alone  endeavours 
to  get  up  some  worship  of  them. 

What  man's  heart  does,  in  reality,  break  forth  into 
any  fire  of  brotherly  love  for  these  men?  They  are 
become  dreadfully  dull  men!  One  breaks  down  of- 
ten enough  in  the  constitutional  eloquence  of  the 
admirable  Pym,  with  his  "seventhly  and  lastly." 
You  find  that  it  may  be  the  admirablest  thing  in  the 
world,  but  that  it  is  heavy, — heavy  as  lead,  barren 
as  brick  clay;  that,  in  a  word,  for  you  there  is  little 
or  nothing  now  surviving  there!  One  leaves  all 
these  Nobilities  standing  in  their  niches  of  honour: 
the  rugged  outcast  Cromwell,  he  is  the  man  of  them 
all,  in  whom  one  still  finds  human  stuff.-  The  great 
savage  Baresark:  he  could  write  no  euphuistic  Mo- 
narchy of  Man;  did  not  speak,  did  not  work  with 
glib  regularity;  had  no  straight  story  to  tell  for  him- 
self any  where.  But  he  stood  bare,  not  cased  in 
euphuistic  coat-of-mail;  he  grappled  like  a  giant, 
face  to  face,  heart  to  heart,  with  the  naked  truth  of 
things!  That,  after  all,  is  the  sort  of  man  for  one. 
I  plead  guilty  to  valuing  such  a  man  beyond  all  other 
sorts  of  men.  Smooth-shaven  Respectabilities  not 
a  few  one  finds,  that  are  not  good  for  much.  Small 
thanks  to  a  man  for  keeping  his  hands  clean,  who 
would  not  touch  the  work  but  with  gloves  on! 

Neither,  on  the  whole,  does  this  constitutional  tole- 
rance of  the  Eighteenth  century  for  the  other  happier 
Puritans  seem  to  be  a  very  great  matter.  One  might 
say,  it  is  but  a  piece  of  Formulism  and  Skepticism 
like  the  rest.  They  tell  us,  It  was  a  sorrowful  thing 
to  consider  that  the  foundation  of  our  English  Liber- 
ties should  have  been  laid  by  "  Superstition."  These 
33 


25S  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Puritans  came  forward  with  Calvinistic  incredible 
Creeds,  anti-Laudisms,  Westminster  Confessions;  de- 
manding, chiefly  of  all,  that  they  should  have  liberty 
to  worship  in  their  own  way.  Liberty  to  tax  them- 
selves: that  was  the  thing  they  should  have  demand- 
ed !  It  was  Superstition,  Fanaticism,  disgraceful 
ignorance  of  Constitutional  Philosophy  to  insist  on 
the  other  thing! — Liberty  to  tax  oneself  ?  Not  to 
pay  out  money  from  your  pocket  except  on  reason 
shown  ?  No  century,  1  think,  but  a  "rather  barren 
one  would  have  fixed  on  that  as  the  first  right  of 
man  !  1  should  say,  on  the  contrary,  A  just  man 
will  generally  have  better  cause  than  money  in  what 
shape  soever,  before  deciding  to  revolt  against  his 
Government.  Ours  is  a  most  confused  world;  in 
which  a  good  man  will  be  thankful  to  see  any  kind 
of  Government  maintain  itself  in  a  not  insupport- 
able manner:  and  here  in  England,  to  this  hour,  if 
he  is  not  ready  to  pay  a  great  many  taxes  which  he 
can  see  very  small  reason  in,  it  will  not  go  well  with 
him,  I  think!  He  must  try  some  other  climate  than 
this.  Tax-gatherer?  Money?  He  will  say:  "Take 
my  money,  since  you  can,  and  it  is  so  desirable  to 
you;  take  it, — and  take  yourself  away  with  it;  and 
leave  me  alone  to  my  work  here,  /am  still  here; 
can  still  work,  after  all  the  money  you  have  taken 
from  me  !"  But  if  they  come  to  him,  and  say,  "  Ac- 
knowledge a  Lie;  pretend  to  say  you  are  worship- 
ping God,  when  you  are  not  doing  it:  believe  not 
the  thing  that  you  find  true,  but  the  thing  that  I  find, 
or  pretend  to  find  true!"  He  will  answer:  "No;  by 
God's  help,  No  !  You  may  take  my  purse;  but  I 
cannot  have  my  moral  Self  annihilated.  The  cash 
is  any  highwayman's  who  might  meet  me  with  a 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 


259 


loaded  pistol:  but  the  Self  is  mine  and  God  my 
Maker's;  it  is  not  yours;  and  I  will  resist  you  to  the 
death,  and  revolt  against  you,  and  on  the  whole  front 
all  manner  of  extremities,  accusations  and  confusions, 
in  defence  of  that!" — 

Really,  it  seems  to  me  the  one  reason  which  could 
justify  revolting,  this  of  the  Puritans.  It  has  been 
the  soul  of  all  just  revolts  among  men.  Not  Hun- 
ger alone  produced  even  the  French  Revolution;  no, 
but  the  feeling  of  the  insupportable,  all-pervading 
Falsehood  which  had  now  imbodied  itself  in  Hunger, 
in  universal  material  Scarcity  and  nonentity,  and 
thereby  become  indisputably  false  in  the  eyes  of  all! 
We  will  leave  the  Eighteenth  century  with  its  "liber- 
ty to  tax  itself."  We  will  not  astonish  ourselves  that 
the  meaning  of  such  men  as  the  Puritans  remained 
dim  to  it.  To  men  who  believed  in  no  reality  at  all, 
how  shall  a  real  human  sou],  the  intensest  of  all 
realities,  as  it  were  the  Voice  of  this  world's  Maker 
still  speaking  to  us, — be  intelligible?  What  it  can- 
mot  reduce  into  constitutional  doctrines  relative  to 
"taxing,"  or  other  the  like  material  interest,  gross, 
palpable  to  the  sense,  such  a  eentury  will  needs  re- 
ject as  an  amorphous  heap  of  rubbish.  Hampdens, 
Pyms  and  Ship-money  will  be  the  theme  of  much 
constitutional  eloquence,  striving  to  be  fervid; — 
which  will  glitter,  if  not  as  fire  does,  then  as  ice  does: 
and  the  irreducible  Cromwell  will  remain  a  chaotic 
mass  of  "  madness,"  "  Hypocrisy,"  and  much  else. 

From  of  old,  I  will  confess,  this  theory  of  Crom- 
well's falsity  has  been  incredible  to  me.  Nay,  I  can- 
not believe  the  like,  of  any  Great  Man  whatever. 
Multitudes  of  Great  Men  figure  in  History  as  false, 
selfish  men;  but  if  we  will  consider  it,  they  are  but 


260  THE  HERO  AS  KIXG. 

figures  for  us,  unintelligible  shadows:  we  do  not  see 
into  them  as  men  that  could  have  existed  at  all.  A 
superficial  unbelieving  generation  only,  with  no  eye 
but  for  the  surfaces  and  semblances  of  things,  could 
form  such  notions  of  Great  Men.  Can  a  great  soul 
be  possible  without  a  conscience  in  it,  the  essence  of 
all  real  souls,  great  or  small? — No,  we  cannot  figure 
Cromwell  as  a  Falsity  and  Fatuity;  the  longer  I 
study  him  and  his  career,  I  believe  this  the  less. 
Why  should  we?  There  is  no  evidence  of  it.  Is 
it  not  strange  that,  after  all  the  mountains  of  calum- 
ny this  man  has  been  subject  to,  after  being  repre- 
sented as  the  very  prince  of  liars,  who  never,  or 
hardly  ever,  spoke  truth,  but  always  some  cunning 
counterfeit  of  truth,  there  should  not  yet  have  been 
one  falsehood  brought  clearly  home  to  him?  A 
prince  of  liars,  and  no  lie  spoken  by  him.  Not  one 
that  I  could  yet  get  sight  of.  It  is  like  Pococke  ask- 
ing Grotius,  Where  is  your  proof  of  Mahomet's  Pi- 
geon? No  proof! —  Let  us  all  leave  these  calumni- 
ous chimeras,  as  chimeras  ought  to  be  left.  They 
are  not  the  portraits  of  the  man;  they  are  distracted 
phantasms  of  him,  the  joint  product  of  hatred  and 
darkness. 

Looking  at  the  man's  life  with  our  own  eyes,  it 
seems  to  me,  a  very  different  hypothesis  suggests  it- 
self. What  little  we  know  of  his  earlier  obscure 
years,  distorted  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  does  it  not 
all  betoken  an  earnest,  hearty,  sincere  kind  of  man? 
His  nervous  melancholic  temperament  indicates  ra- 
ther a  seriousness  too  deep  for  him.  You  remember 
that  story  of  his  having  a  vision  of  the  Evil  Spirit, 
predicting  that  he  would  be  Sovereign  of  England, 
and  so  forth.     In  broad  daylight,  some  huge  white 


LECT.  VI.  THE   HERO  AS  KING.  261 

Spectre,  which  he  took  to  be  the  Devil,  with  preter- 
natural monitions  of  some  sort,  shows  itself  to  him : 
the  Royalists  made  immense  babble  about  it;  but 
apart  from  their  speculations,  we  can  suppose  this 
story  of  the  Spectre  to  be  true.  Then  there  are  af- 
terwards those  hypochondriacal  visions;  the  Doctor 
sent  for;  Oliver  imagining  that  "the  steeple  of  Hun- 
tingdon was  about  to  tumble  on  him."  Such  an  ex- 
citable deep-feeling  nature,  in  that  rugged  stubborn 
bulk  of  his;  in  other  words,  a  soul  of  such  intensity, 
such  sensibility  with  all  its  strength ! 

The  young  Oliver  is  sent  to  study  law;  falls,  for  a 
little  period,  into  some  of  the  dissipations  of  youth; 
but  speedily  repents,  abandons  all  this:  not  much 
above  twenty  he  is  married,  settled  as  .an  altogether 
grave  and  quiet  man.  He  pays  back  what  money 
he  had  won  at  gambling; — he  does  not  think  any 
gain  of  that  kind  could  be  really  his.  It  is  very  in- 
teresting, very  natural,  this  "  conversion,"  as  they 
well  name  it;  this  awakening  of  a  great  true  soul 
from  the  worldly  slough,  to  see  into  the  awful  truth 
of  things; — to  see  that  Time  and  its  shows  all  rested 
on  Eternity,  and  this  poor  Earth  of  ours  was  the 
threshold  either  of  Heaven  or  Hell!  Oliver's  life 
at  Ely  as  a  sober  industrious  Farmer,  is  it  not  alto- 
gether as  that  of  a  true  devout  man?  He  has  re- 
nounced the  world  and  its  ways:  its  prizes  are  not 
the  thing  that  can  enrich  him.  He  tills  the  earth; 
he  reads  his  Bible;  daily  assembles  his  servants  round 
him  to  worship  God.  He  comforts  persecuted  minis- 
ters, is  fond  of  preaching:  nay,  can  himself  preach, 
— exhorts  his  neighbours  to  be  wise,  to  redeem  the 
time.  In  all  this  what  "hypocrisy,"  "ambition," 
"  cant,"  or  other  falsity  ?  The  man's  hopes,  I  do  be- 
22* 


262  THE  HERO  AS    KING. 

lieve,  were  fixed  on  the  other  Higher  World;  his  aim 
to  get  well  thither  by  walking  well  through  his  hum- 
ble course  in  this  world.  He  courts  no  notice:  what 
could  notice  here  do  for  him?  "Ever  in  his  great 
Taskmaster's  eye." — It  is  striking, too,  how  he  comes 
out  once  into  public  view:  he,  since  no  other  is  will- 
ing to  come,  in  resistance  to  a  public  grievance.  I 
mean,  in  the  matter  of  the  Bedford  Fens.  No  one 
else  will  go  to  law  with  Authority;  therefore  he  will. 
That  matter  once  settled,  he  returns  back  into  ob- 
scurity, to  his  Bible  and  his  Plough.  "Gain  influ- 
ence ?"  His  influence  is  the  most  legitimate;  derived 
from  personal  knowledge  of  him,  as  a  just,  religious, 
reasonable  and  determined  man.  In  this  way  he 
has  lived  till  past  forty;  old  age  is  now  in  view  of 
him,  and  the  earnest  portal  of  Death  and  Eternity; 
— it  was  at  this  point  that  he  suddenly  became  "am- 
bitious!" I  do  not  interpret  his  Parliamentary  Mis- 
sion in  that  way ! 

His  successes  in  Parliament,  his  successes  through 
the  war,  are  honest  successes  of  a  brave  man;  who  has 
more  resolution  in  the  heart  of  him,  more  light  in  the 
head  of  him  than  other  men.  His  prayers  to  God; 
his  spoken  thanks  to  the  God  of  Victory,  who  had 
preserved  him  safe,  and  carried  him  forward  so  far, 
through  the  furious  clash  of  a  world  all  set  in  con- 
flict,  through  desperate-looking  envelopments  at 
Dunbar;  through  the  death  hail  of  so  many  battles; 
mercy  after  mercy;  to  the  "crowning  mercy"  of 
Worcester  Fight;  all  this  is  good  and  genuine  for  a 
deep-hearted  Calvinistic  Cromwell.  Only  to  vain 
unbelieving  Cavaliers,  worshipping  not  God  but  their 
own  "love-locks,"  frivolities  and  formalities,  living 
quite  apart  from  contemplations  of  God,  living 
without  God  in  the  world,  need  it  seem  hypocritical 


I.ECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  263 

Nor  will  his  participation  in  the  King's  death 
involve  him  in  condemnation  with  us.  It  is  a  stern 
business  killing  of  a  King!  But  if  you  once  go  to 
war  with  him,  it  lies  there;  this  and  all  else  lies 
there.  Once  at  war,  you  have  made  wager  of  bat- 
tle with  him:  it  is  he  to  die,  or  else  you.  Reconci- 
liation is  problematic;  may  be  possible,  or,  far  more 
likely,  is  impossible.  It  is  now  pretty  generally  ad- 
mitted that  the  Parliament,  having  vanquished 
Charles  First,  had  no  way  of  making  any  tenable 
arrangement  with  him.  The  large  Presbyterian  par- 
ty, apprehensive  now  of  the  Independents,  were 
most  anxious  to  do  so;  anxious  indeed  as  for  their 
own  existence;  but  it  could  not  be.  The  unhappy 
Charles,  in  whose  final  Hampton-Court  negotiations, 
shows  himself  as  a  man  fatally  incapable  of  being 
dealt  with.  A  man  who,  once  for  all,  could  not  and 
would  not  understand ; — whose  thought  did  not  in 
any  measure  represent  to  him  the  real  fact  of  the 
matter;  nay,  worse,  whose  word  did  not  at  all  repre- 
sent his  thought.  We  may  say  this  of  him  without 
cruelty,  with  deep  pity  rather:  but  it  is  true  and  un- 
deniable. Forsaken  there  of  all  but  the  name  of 
Kingship,  he  still,  finding  himself  treated  with  out- 
ward respect  as  a  King,  fancied  that  he  might  play 
off  party  against  party,  and  smuggle  himself  into 
his  old  power  by  deceiving  both,  Alas,  they  both 
discovered  that  he  was  deceiving  them.  ■  (A  man 
whose  word  will  not  inform  you  at  all  what  he  means 
or  will  do,  is  not  a  man  you  can  bargain  with.  You 
must  get  out  of  that  man's  w^ay,  or  put  him  out  of 
yours! {-The  Presbyterians,  in  their  despair,  were 
still  for  believing  Charles,  though  found  false,  unbe- 
lievable again  and  again.     Not  so  Cromwell:  "For 


264  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

all  our  fighting,"  says  he,  "  we  are  to  have  a  little 
bit  of  paper?"     No!^- 

In  fact,  every  where  we  have  to  note  the  decisive 
practical  eye  of  this  man;  how  he  drives  toward  the 
practical  and  practicable;  he  has  a  genuine  insight  into 
what  is  fact.  Such  an  intellect,  I  maintain,  does  not 
belong  to  a  false  man:  the  false  man  sees  false  shows, 
plausibilities,  expediencies:  the  true  man  is  needed 
to  discern  even  practical  truth.  Cromwell's  advice 
about  the  Parliament's  Army,  early  in  the  contest, 
How  they  were  to  dismiss  their  city-tapsters,  flimsy, 
riotous  persons,  and  choose  substantial  yeomen, 
whose  heart  was  in  the  work,  to  be  soldiers  for  them: 
this  is  advice  by  a  man  who  saw.  Fact  answers,  if 
you  see  into  Fact !  Cromwell's  Ironsides  were  the 
imbodiment  of  this  insight  of  his;  men  fearing  God; 
and  without  any  other  fear.  No  more  conclusively 
genuine  set  of  fighters  ever  trod  the  soil  of  England, 
or  of  any  other  land. 

Neither  will  we  blame  greatly  that  word  of  Crom- 
well's to  them  ;  which  was  so  blamed :  "  If  the  King 
should  meet  me  in  battle,  I  would  kill  the  King." 
Why  not?  These  words  were  spoken  to  men  who 
stood  as  before  Higher  than  Kings.  They  had  set 
more  than  their  own  lives  on  the  cast.  The  Par- 
liament may  call  it,  in  official  language,  a  fighting 
"for  the  King:"  but  we,  for  our  share,  cannot  under- 
stand that.  To  us  it  is  no  dilettante  work,  no  sleek 
officiality;  it  is  sheer  rough  death  and  earnest.  They 
have  brought  it  to  the  calling  forth  of  War:  horrid 
internecine  fight,  man  grappling  with  man  in  fire- 
eyed  rage, — the  infernal  element  of  man  called  forth, 
to  try  it  by  that!  Do  that  therefore;  since  that  is 
the  thing  to  be  done. — The  successes  of  Cromwell 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  265 

seem  to  me  a  very  natural  thing!  Since  he  was  not 
shot  in  battle,  they  were  an  inevitable  thing.  That 
such  a  man,  with  the  eye  to  see,  with  the  heart  to 
dare,  should  advance,  from  post  to  post,  from  victo- 
ry to  victory,  till  the  Huntingdon  Farmer  became, 
by  whatever  name  you  might  call  him,  the  ac- 
knowledged Strongest  man  in  England,  virtually  the 
King  of  England,  requires  no  magic  to  explain  it ! — 

Truly  it  is  a  sad  thing  for  a  people,  as  for  a  man, 
to  fall  into  Skepticism,  into  dilettantism,  insincerity; 
not  to  know  a  sincerity  when  they  see  it.  For  this 
world,  and  for  all  worlds,  what  curse  is  so  fatal!  The 
heart  lying  dead,  the  eye  cannot  see.  What  intel- 
lect remains  is  merely  the  vulpine  intellect.  That  a 
true  King  be  sent  them  is  of  small  use;  they  do  not 
know  him  when  sent.  They  say  scornfully,  Is  this 
your  King?  The  Hero  wastes  his  heroic  faculty  in 
bootless  contradiction  from  the  unworthy;  and  can 
accomplish  little.  For  himself  he  does  accomplish 
a  heroic  life,  which  is  much,  which  is  all;  but  for  the 
world  he  accomplishes  comparatively  nothing.  The 
wild  rude  Sincerity,  direct  from  Nature,  is  not  glib  in 
answering  from  the  witness-box;  in  your  small-debt 
pie-powder  court,  he  is  scouted  as  a  counterfeit.  The 
vulpine  intellect  "  detects"  him.  For  being  a  man 
worth  any  thousand  men,  the  response  your  Knox, 
your  Cromwell  gets,  is  an  argument  for  two  centu- 
ries whether  he  was  a  man  at  all.  God's  greatest 
gift  to  this  Earth  is  sneeringly  flung  away,  if  The  mi- 
raculous talisman  is  a  paltry  plated  coin,  not  fit  to 
pass  in  the  shops  as  a  common  guinea:  — 

Lamentable  this!  I  say  this  must  be  remedied. 
Till  this  be  remedied  in  some  measure,  there  is  no- 


266  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

thing  remedied.  <•' Detect  quacks?"  Yes,  do,  for 
Heaven's  sake;  but  know  withal  the  men  that  are 
to  be  trusted !  Till  we  know  that,  what  is  all  our 
knowledge;  how  shall  we  so  much  as  "  detect ?" 
The  vulpine  sharpness,  which  considers  itself  to  be 
knowledge,  and  "  detects  "  in  that  fashion,  is  far  mis- 
taken. Dupes  indeed  are  many;  but  of  all  dupes, 
there  is  none  so  fatally  situated  as  he  who  lives  in 
undue  terror  of  being  duped.  The  world  does  exist; 
the  world  has  truth  in  it,  or  it  would  not  exist!.  First 
recognise  what  is  true,  we  shall  then  discern  what  is 
false;  and  properly  never  till  then. 

"  Know  the  men  that  are  to  be  trusted :"  alas,  this 
is  yet,  in  these  days,  very  far  from  us.  The  sincere 
alone  can  recognise  sincerity.  Not  a  Hero  only  is 
needed,  but  a  world  fit  for  him;  a  world  not  of  Va- 
lets;-— the  Hero  comes  almost  in  vain  to  it  otherwise! 
Yes,  it  is  far  from  us:  but  it  must  come;  thank  God, 
it  is  visibly  coming.  Till  it  do  come,  what  have 
we  ?  Ballot-boxes,  suffrages,  French  Revolutions: 
— if  we  are  as  Valets,  and  do  not  know  the  Hero, 
when  we  see  him,  what  good  are  all  these  ?  A  he- 
roic Cromwell  comes;  and  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  he  cannot  have  a  vote  from  us.  Why,  the  in- 
sincere, unbelieving  world  is  the  natural  property  of 
the  Quack,  and  of  the  Father  of  Quacks  and  Quacke- 
ries !  Misery,  confusion,  unveracity  are  alone  pos- 
sible there.  By  ballot-boxes  we  alter  the  figure  of 
our  Quack;  but  the  substance  of  him  continues. 
The  Valet- World  has  to  be  governed  by  the  sham* 
Hero,  by  the  king  merely  dressed  in  King-gear.  It 
is  his;  he  it  is!  One  of  two  things:  We  shall  either 
learn  to  know  a  Hero,  a  true  Governor  and  Captain, 
somewhat  better,  when  we  see  him ;  or  else  go  on  Xq 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  267 

be  for  ever  governed  by  the  Unheroic; — had  we  bal- 
lot boxes  clattering  at  every  street-corner,  there 
were  no  remedy  in  these. 

Poor  Cromwell, — great  Cromwell !  The  inarticu- 
late Prophet;  Prophet  who  could  not  speak.  Rude, 
confused,  struggling  to  utter  himself,  with  his 
savage  depth,  with  his  wild  sincerity,  and  he  looked 
so  strange,  among  the  elegant  Euphuisms,  dainty 
little  Falklands,  didactic  Chillingworths,  diplomatic 
Clarendons  ?  Consider  him.  An  outer  hull  of 
chaotic  confusion,  visions  of  the  Devil,  nervous 
dreams,  almost  semi-madness;  and  yet  such  a  clear 
determinate  man's  energy  working  in  the  heart  of 
that.  A  kind  of  chaotic  man.  The  ray  as  of  pure 
starlight  and  fire,  working  in  such  an  element  of 
boundless  hypochondria,  wrcformed  black  of  dark- 
ness !  And  yet  withal  this  hypochondria,  what  was 
it  but  the  very  greatness  of  the  man  ?  The  depth 
and  tenderness  of  his  wild  affections;  the  quantity  of 
sympathy  he  had  with  things, — the  quantity  of  in- 
sight he  would  yet  get  into  the  heart  of  things,  the 
mastery  he  would  get  over  things:  this  was  his  hy- 
pochondria. The  man's  misery,  as  man's  misery 
always  does,  came  of  his  greatness.  Samuel  John- 
son too  is  that  kind  of  man.  Sorrow-stricken,  half- 
distracted  ;  the  wide  element  of  mournful  black  en- 
veloping him, — wide  as  the  world.  It  is  the  cha- 
racter of  a  prophetic  man;  a  man  with  his  whole 
soul  seeing  and  struggling  to  see. 

On  this  ground,  too,  I  explain  to  myself  Crom- 
well's reputed  confusion  of  speech.  To  himself  the 
internal  meaning  was  sun-clear;  but  the  material 
wTith  which  he  was  to  clothe  it  with  utterance  was 
not  there.     He  had  lived  silent:   a  great  unnamed 


26S  THE   HERO  AS  KING. 

sea  of  Thought  round  him  all  his  days;  and  in  his 
way  of  life  little  call  to  attempt  naming  or  uttering 
that.  With  his  sharp  power  of  vision,  resolute 
power  of  action,  I  doubt  not  he  could  have  learned 
to  write  Books  withal,  and  speak  fluently  enough; 
— he  did  harder  things  than  writing  of  Books. 
This  kind  of  man  is  precisely  he  who  is  fit  for  doing 
manfully  all  things  you  will  set  him  on  doing.  In- 
tellect is  not  speaking  and  logicizing;  it  is  seeing 
and  ascertaining.  Virtue,  Vir-tus,  manhood,  hero- 
hood,  is  not  fair-spoken,  immaculate  regularity;  it  is 
first  of  all,  what  the  Germans  well  name  it,  Tugend 
( Taugend dow-ing  or  Doughtiness,)  Courage  and  the 
Faculty  to  do.  This  basis  of  the  matter  Cromwell 
had  in  him. 

One  understands  moreover,  how,  though  he  could 
not  speak  in  Parliament,  he  might  preach,  rhapsodic 
preaching;  above  all,  how  he  might  be  great  in  ex- 
tempore prayer.  These  are  the  free  out-pouring  ut- 
terances of  what  is  in  the  heart:  method  is  not  re- 
quired in  them;  warmth,  depth,  sincerity  are  all  that 
is  required.  Cromwell's  habit  of  prayer  is  a  notable 
feature  of  him.  All  his  great  enterprises  were  com- 
menced with  prayer.  In  dark  inextricable-looking 
difficulties,  his  Officers  and  he  used  to  assemble,  and 
pray  alternately,  for  hours,  for  days,  till  some  defi- 
nite resolution  rose  among  them,  some  "door  of 
hope,"  as  they  would  name  it,  disclosed  itself.  Con- 
sider that. 

In  tears,  in  fervent  prayers,  and  cries  to  the  great 
God  to  have  pity  on  them,  to  make  His  light  shine 
before  them.  They,  armed  Soldiers  of  Christ,  as 
they  felt  themselves  to  be;  a  little  band  of  Christian 
Brothers,  who  had  drawn  the  sword  against  a  great 


LECT.  VI.  THE   HERO  AS  KING.  269 

black  devouring  world  not  Christian,  butMammonish, 
Devilish, — they  cried  to  God  in  their  straits,  in  their 
extreme  need,  not  to  forsake  the  cause  that  was  His. 
The  light  which  now  rose  upon  them, — how  could 
a  human  soul,  by  any  means  at  all,  get  better  light? 
Was  not  the  purpose  so  formed  like  to  be  precisely 
the  best,  wisest,  the  one  to  be  followed  without  hesi- 
tation any  more?  To  them  it  was  as  the  shining  of 
Heaven's  own  Splendour  in  the  waste-howling'dark- 
ness;  the  Pillar  of  fire  by  night,  that  was  to  guide 
them  on  their  desolate,  perilous  way.  Was  it  not 
such?  Can  a  man's  soul,  to  this  hour,  get  guidance 
by  any  other  method  than  intrinsically  by  that  same, 
— devout  prostration  of  the  earnest  struggling  soul 
before  the  Highest,  the  Giver  of  all  Light;  be  such 
prayer  a  spoken,  articulate,  or  be  it  a  voiceless,  in- 
articulate one?  There  is  no  other  method.  "Hy- 
pocrisy?" One  begins  to  be  weary  of  all  that.  They 
who  call  it  so,  have  no  right  to  speak  on  such  mat- 
ters. They  never  formed  a  purpose,  what  one  can 
call  a  purpose.  They  went  about  balancing  expe- 
diencies, plausibilities;  gathering  votes,  advices; 
they  never  were  alone  with  the  truth  of  a  thing  at 
all. — Cromwell's  prayers  were  likely  to  be  "elo- 
quent," and  much  more  than  that.  His  was  the  heart 
of  a  man  who  could  pray. 

But  indeed  his  actual  Speeches,  I  apprehend, 
were  not  nearly  so  ineloquent,  incondite,  as  they 
look.  We  find  he  was,  what  all  speakers  aim  to  be, 
an  impressive  speaker,  even  in  Parliament;  one 
who,  from  the  first,  had  weight.  With  that  rude 
passionate  voice  of  his,  he  was  always  understood  to 
mean  something,  and  men  wished  to  know  what. 
23 


270  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

He  disregarded  eloquence,  nay  despised  and  disliked 
it;  spoke  always  without  premeditation  of  the  words 
he  was  to  use.  The  Reporters,  too,  in  those  days, 
seem  to  have  been  singularly  candid;  and  to  have 
given  the  Printer  precisely  what  they  found  on  their 
own  note-paper.  And  withal,  what  a  strange  proof 
is  it  of  Cromwell's  being  the  premeditative  ever-cal- 
culating hypocrite,  acting  a  play  before  the  world, 
That  to  the  last  he  took  no  more  charge  of  his 
Speeches!  How  came  he  not  to  study  his  words  a 
little,  before  flinging  them  out  to  the  public?  If  the 
words  were  true  words,  they  could  be  left  to  shift 
for  themselves. 

But  with  regard  to  Cromwell's  "  lying,"  we  will 
make  one  remark.  This,  I  suppose,  or  something 
like  this,  to  have  been  the  nature  of  it.  All  parties 
found  themselves  deceived  in  him;  each  party  un- 
derstood him  to  be  meaning  this,  heard  him  even 
say  so,  and  behold  he  turns  out  to  have  been  mean- 
ing that!  He  was,  cry  they,  the  chief  of  liars.  But 
now,  intrinsically,  is  not  all  this  the  inevitable  for- 
tune, not  of  a  false  man  in  such  times,  but  simply  of 
a  superior  man?  Such  a  man  must  have  reticences 
•in  him.  If  he  walk  wearing  his  heart  upon  his 
sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at,  his  journey  will  not  ex- 
tend far!  There  is  no  use  for  any  man's  taking  up 
his  abode  in  a  house  built  of  glass.  A  man  always 
is  to  be  himself  the  judge  how  much  of  his  mind  he 
will  show  to  other  men;  even  to  those  he  would 
have  work  along  with  him.  There  are  impertinent 
inquiries  made:  your  rule  is,  to  leave  the  inquirer 
wmnformed  on  that  matter;  not,  if  you  can  help  it, 
misinformed,  but  precisely  as  dark  as  he  was!  This, 
could  one  hit  the  right  phrase  of  response,  is  what 


LECT.  VI.        THE  HERO  AS  KING.  271 

the  wise  and  faithful  man  would  aim  to  answer  in 
such  a  case. 

Cromwell,  no  doubt  of  it,  spoke  often  in  the  dia- 
lect of  small  subaltern  parties;  uttered  to  them  a 
part  of  his  mind.  Each  little  party  thought  him  all 
its  own.  Hence  their  rage,  one  and  all,  to  find  him 
not  of  their  party,  but  of  his  own  party !,-  Was  it  his 
blame?  At  all  seasons  of  his  history,  he  must  have 
felt,  among  such  people,  how,  if  he  explained  to 
them  the  deeper  insight  he  had,  they  must  either 
have  shuddered  aghast  at  it,  or  believing  it,  their  own 
little  compact  hypothesis  must  have  gone  wholly  to 
wreck.  They  could  not  have  worked  in  his  province 
any  more;  nay,  perhaps  they  could  not  now  have 
worked  in  their  own  province,  j  It  is  the  inevitable 
position  of  a  great  man  among  small  men.  t  Small 
men,  most  active,  useful,  are  to  be  seen  every  where, 
whose  whole  activity  depends  on  some  conviction 
which  to  you  is  palpably  a  limited  one;  imperfect, 
what  we  call  an  error.  But  would  it  be  a  kindness 
always,  is  it  a  duty  always  or  often,  to  disturb  them 
in  that?  Many  a  man,  doing  loud  work  in  the  world, 
stands  only  on  some  thin  traditionally,  convention- 
ality; to  him  indubitable,  to  you  incredible:  break  that 
beneath  him,  he  sinks  to  endless  depths!"  "I  might 
have  my  hand  full  of  truth,"  said  Fontenelle,  "  and 
open  only  my  little  finger." 

And  if  this  be  the  fact  even  in  matters  of  doctrine, 
how  much  more  in  all  departments  of  practice,  f  He 
that  cannot  withal  keep  his  mind  to  himself  cannot 
practise  any  considerable  thing  whatever.-**  And  we 
call  it  "dissimulation,"  all  this!  What  would  you 
think  of  calling  the  general  of  an  army  a  dissembler 
because  he  did  not  tell  every  corporal  and  private 


272  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

soldier,  who  pleased  to  put  the  question,  what  his 
thoughts  were  about  every  thing? — Cromwell,  I 
should  rather  say,  managed  all  this  in  a  manner  we 
must  admire  for  its  perfection.  An  endless  vortex 
of  such  questioning  "corporals"  rolled  confusedly 
round  him  through  his  whole  course;  whom  he  did 
answer.  It  must  have  been  as  a  great  true-seeing 
man  that  he  managed  this  too.  Not  one  proved 
falsehood,  as  I  said;  not  one!  Of  what  man  that 
ever  wound  himself  through  such  a  coil  of  things  will 
you  say  so  much? — 

But,  in  fact,  there  are  two  errors,  widely  prevalent, 
which  pervert  to  the  very  basis  our  judgment  formed 
about  such  men  as  Cromwell;  about  their  "ambition," 
"falsity,"  and  such  like.  The  first  is  what  I  might 
call  substituting  the  goal  of  their  career  for  the 
course  and  starting-point  of  it.  The  vulgar  Historian 
of  a  Cromwell  fancies  that  he  had  determined  on 
being  Protector  of  England,  at  the  time  when  he 
was  ploughing  the  marsh  lands  of  Cambridgeshire. 
His  career  lay  all  mapped  out;  a  program  of  the 
whole  drama;  which  he  then,  step  by  step,  dramati- 
cally unfolded,  with  all  manner  of  cunning,  decep- 
tive dramaturgy,  as  he  went  on, — the  hollow, 
scheming  'rnoxqiriig,  or  Play-actor  that  he  was!  This 
is  a  radical  perversion;  all  but  universal  in  such 
cases.  And  think  for  an  instant  how  different  the 
fact  is!  How  much  does  one  of  as  foresee  of  his 
own  life?  Short  way  ahead  of  us  it  is  all  dim;  an 
?m\vound  skein  of  possibilities,  of  apprehensions,  at- 
temptabilities,  vague  looming  hopes.  This  Crom- 
well had  not  his  life  lying  all  in  that  fashion  of  Pro- 
gram, which   he  needed  then,  with  that  unfathom- 


LECT.  VI.       THE  HERO  AS  KING.  273 

able  cuhning  of  his,  only  to  enact  dramatically, 
scene  after  scene!  Not  so.  We  see  it  so;  but  to 
him  it  was  in  no  measure  so.  What  absurdities 
would  fall  away  of  themselves,  were  this  one  unde- 
niable fact  kept  honestly  in  view  by  History.  His- 
torians indeed  will  tell  you  that  they  do  keep  it  in 
view; — but  look  whether  such  is  practically  the  fact! 
Vulgar  History,  as  in  this  Cromwell's  case,  omits  it 
altogether;  even  the  best  kinds  of  History  only  re- 
member it  now  and  then.  To  remember  it  duly, 
with  rigorous  perfection,  as  in  the  fact  it  stood,  re- 
quires indeed  a  rare  faculty ;  rare,  nay  impossible. 
A  very  Shakspeare  for  faculty;  or  more  than  Shak- 
speare;  who  could  enact  a  brother  man's  biography, 
see  with  the  brother  man's  eyes  at  all  points  of  his 
course  what  things  he  saw;  in  short,  know  his  course 
and  him,  as  few  "Historians"  are  like  to  do.  Half 
or  more  of  all  the  thick-plied  perversions  which  dis- 
tort our  image  of  Cromwell,  will  disappear,  if  we 
honestly  so  much  as  try  to  represent  them  so:  in 
sequence,  as  they  were;  not  in  the  lump,  as  they 
are  thrown  down  before  us. 

But  a  second  error,  which  I  think  the  generality 
commit,  refers  to  this  same  "ambition"  itself.  We 
exaggerate  the  ambition  of  Great  Men;  we  mistake 
what  the  nature  of  it  is.  Great  Men  are  not  ambi- 
tious in  that  sense;  he  is  a  small  poor  man  that  is 
ambitious  so.  Examine  the  man  who  lives  in  misery 
because  he  does  not  shine  above  other  men;  who 
goes  about  producing  himself,  pruriently  anxious 
about  his  gifts  and  claims;  struggling  to  force  every 
body,  as  it  were  begging  every  body  for  God's  sake, 
to  acknowledge  him  a  great  man,  and  set  him 
over  the  heads  of  men!  Such  a  creature  is  among 
23* 


274  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

the  wretchedest  sights  seen  under  this  sun.  A  great 
man?  A  poor  morbid  prurient  empty  man;  fitter 
for  the  ward  of  an  hospital,  than  for  a  throne  among 
men.  I  advise  you  to  keep  out  of  his  way.  He  can- 
not walk  on  quiet  paths;  unless  you  will  look  at 
him.  wonder  at  him,  write  paragraphs  about  him,  he 
cannot  live.  It  is  the  emptiness  of  the  man,  not  his 
greatness.  Because  there  is  nothing  in  himself,  he 
hungers  and  thirsts  that  you  would  find  something  in 
him.  In  good  truth,  1  believe  no  great  man,  not  so 
much  as  a  genuine  man  who  had  health  and  real 
substance  in  him  of  whatever  magnitude,  was  ever 
much  tormented  in  this  way. 

Your  Cromwell,  what  good  could  it  do  him  to  be 
"  noticed  "  by  noisy  crowds  of  people?  God  his  Ma- 
ker already  noticed  him.  He,  Cromwell,  was  al- 
ready there;  no  notice  would  make  him  other  than 
he  already  was.  Till  his  hair  was  grown  gray;  and 
Life  from  the  down-hill  slope  was  all  seen  to  be 
limited,  not  infinite,  but  finite,  and  all  a  measurable 
matter  how  it  went, — he  had  been  content  to  plough 
the  ground,  and  read  his  Bible.  He  in  his  old  days 
could  not  support  it  any  longer,  without  selling  him- 
self to  Falsehood,  that  he  might  ride  in  gilt  carriages 
to  Whitehall,  and  have  clerks  with  bundles  of  pa- 
pers haunting  him,  "Decide  this,  decide  that," 
which  in  utmost  sorrow  of  heart  no  man  can  per- 
fectly decide  !  What  could  gilt  carriages  do  for  this 
man  ?  From  of  old,  was  there  not  in  his  life  a 
weight  of  meaning,  a  terror  and  a  splendour  as  of 
Heaven  itself?  His  existence  there  as  man,  set  him 
beyond  the  need  of  gilding.  Death,  Judgment  and 
Eternity:  these  already  lay  as  the  back-ground  of 
whatsoever  he  thought  or  did.    All  his  life  lay  begirt 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO   AS   KING.  275 

as  in  a  sea  of  nameless  Thoughts,  which  no  speech 
of  a  mortal  could  name.  God's  Word,  as  the  Puri- 
tan prophets  of  that  time  had  read  it:  this  was  great, 
and  all  else  was  little  to  him.  To  call  such  a  man 
"ambitious,"  to  figure  him  as  the  prurient  wind-bag 
described  above,  seems  to  me  the  poorest  solecism. 
Such  a  man  will  say:  "Keep  your  gilt  carriages  and 
huzzaing  mobs,  keep  your  red-tape  clerks,  your  in- 
fluentialities,  your  important  businesses.  Leave  me 
alone,  leave  me  alone;  there  is  too  much  life  in  me 
already!"  Old  Samuel  Johnson,  the  greatest  soul 
in  England  in  his  day,  was  not  ambitious.  "  Corsica 
Boswell "  flaunted  at  public  shows  with  printed 
ribands  round  his  hat;  but  the  great  old  Samuel  stayed 
at  home.  The  world-wide  soul  wrapped  up  in  its 
thoughts,  in  its  sorrows; -/-what  could  paradings  and 
ribands  in  the  hat  do  for  it?^~ 

Ah,  yes,  I  will  say  again:  The  great  silent  men! 
Looking  round  on  the  noisy  inanity  of  the  world, 
words  with  little  meaning,  actions  with  little  worth, 
one  loves  to  reflect  on  the  great  Empire  of  Silence. 
The  noble  silent  men,  scattered  here  and  there, 
each  in  his  department  ^silently  thinking,  silently 
working;- whom  no  Morning  Newspaper  makes  men- 
tion of!  They  are  the  salt  of  the  Earth.  A  coun- 
try that  has  none  or  few  of  these  is  in  a  bad  way. 
Like  a  forest  which  had  no  roots;  which  had  all  turned 
into  leaves  and  boughs; — which  must  soon  wither 
and  be  no  forest.  Wo  for  us,  if  we  had  nothing  but 
what  we  can  show,  or  speak. 

Silence,  the  great  Empire  of  Silence:  higher  than 
the  stars;  deeper  than  the  Kingdoms  of  Death!  It 
alone  is  great;  all  else  is  small. — I  hope  we  English 
will  long  maintain  our  grand  talent  pour  le  silence. 


276  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Let  others  that  cannot  do  without  standing  on  barrel- 
heads, to  spout,  and  be  seen  of  all  the  market-place, 
cultivate  speech  exclusively, — become  a  most  green 
forest  without  roots!  Solomon  says,  There  is  a  time 
to  speak;  but  also  a  time  to  keep  silence.  Of  some 
great  silent  Samuel,  not  urged  to  writing,  as  old 
Samuel  Johnson  says  he  was,  by  want  of  money,  and 
nothing  other,  one  might  ask,  "Why  do  not  you  too 
get  up  and  speak;  promulgate  your  system,  found 
your  sect?" — "Truly,"  he  will  answer,  "I  am  con- 
tinent of  my  thought  hitherto;  I  happily  have  yet 
had  the  ability  to  keep  it  in  me,  no  compulsion  strong 
enough  to  speak  it.  My  "system  "  is  not  for  promul- 
gation first  of  all;  it  is  for  serving  myself  to  live  by. 
That  is  the  great  purpose  of  it  to  me.  And  then  the 
"honour?"  Alas,  yes; — but  as  Cato  said  of  the 
statue:  "So  many  statues  in  that  Forum  of  yours, 
may  it  not  be  better  if  they  ask,  Where  is  Cato's 
statue?  than  say,  There  it  is!" 

But  now  by  way  of  counterpoise  to  this  of  Silence, 
let  me  say  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  ambition;  one 
wholly  blameable,  the  other  laudable  and  inevitable. 
Nature  has  provided  that  the  great  silent  Samuel 
shall  not  be  silent  too  long.  The  selfish  wish  to  shine 
over  others,  let  it  be  accounted  altogether  poor  and 
miserable.  "Seekest  thou  great  things,  seek  them 
not;"  this  is  most  true.  And  yet,  I  say,  there  is  an 
irrepressible  tendency  in  every  man  to  develop  him- 
self according  to  the  magnitude  which  Nature  has 
made  him  of;  to  speak  out,  to  act  out,  what  Nature 
has  laid  in  him.  This  is  proper,  fit,  inevitable;  nay 
it  is  a  duty,  and  even  the  summary  of  duties  for  a 
man.  The  meaning  of  life  here  on  earth  might  be 
defined  as  consisting  in  this:  To  unfold  your  self,  to 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  277 

work  what  thing  you  have  the  faculty  for.  It  is  a 
necessity  for  the  human  being,  the  first  law  of  our 
existence.  Coleridge  beautifully  remarks  that  the 
infant  learns  to  speak  by  this  necessity  it  feels. — We 
will  say  therefore,  To  decide  about  ambition,  whe- 
ther it  is  bad  or  not,  you  have  two  things  to  take  into 
view.  Not  the  coveting  of  the  place  alone,  but  the 
fitness  of  the  man  for  the  place  withal:  that  is  the 
question.  Perhaps  the  place  was  his;  perhaps  he 
had  a  natural  right,  and  even  obligation,  to  seek  the 
place!  Mirabeau's  ambition  to  be  Prime  Minister, 
how  shall  we  blame  it,  if  he  were  "the  only  man  in 
France  that  could  have  done  any  good  there?" 
Hopefuller  perhaps,  had  he  not  so  clearly  felt  how 
much  he  could  do!  But  a  poor  Necker,  who  could 
do  no  good,  and  had  even  felt  that  he  could  do  none, 
yet  sitting  broken-hearted  because  they  had  flung 
him  out,  and  he  was  now  quit  of  it,  well  might  Gib- 
bon mourn  over  him. — Nature,  I  say,  has  provided 
amply  that  the  silent  great  man  shall  strive  to  speak 
withal;  too  amply,  rather. 

Fancy,  for  example,  you  had  revealed  to  the  brave 
old  Samuel  Johnson,  in  his  shrouded-up  existence, 
that  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do  a  priceless  divine 
work  for  his  country  and  the  whole  world.  That 
the  perfect  Heavenly  Law  might  be  made  Law  on 
this  Earth,  that  the  prayer  he  prayed  daily,  "Thy 
kingdom  come,"  was  at  length  to  be  fulfilled!  If 
you  had  convinced  his  judgment  of  this;  that  it  was 
possible,  practicable;  that  he  the  mournful  silent 
Samuel  was  called  to  take  a  part  in  it!  Would  not 
the  whole  soul  of  the  man  have  flamed  up  into  a  di- 
vine clearness,  into  noble  utterance  and  determina- 
tion to  act;  casting  all  sorrows  and  misgivings  un- 


278  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

der  his  feet,  counting  all  affliction  and  contradiction 
small, — the  whole  dark  element  of  his  existence 
blazing  into  articulate  radiance  of  light  and  light- 
ning? It  were  a  true  ambition  this!  And  think 
now  how  it  actually  was  with  Cromwell.  From  of 
old,  the  sufferings  of  God's  Church,  true  zealous 
Preachers  of  the  truth  flung  into  dungeons,  whipped, 
set  on  pillories,  their  ears  cropped  off,  God's  Gospel- 
cause  trodden  under  foot  of  the  unworthy:  all  this 
had  lain  heavy  on  his  soul.  Long  years  he  had 
looked  upon  it,  in  silence,  in  prayer;  seeing  no 
remedy  on  Earth;  trusting  well  that  a  remedy  in 
Heaven's  goodness  would  come, — that  such  a  course 
was  false,  unjust,  and  could  not  last  for  ever.  And 
now  behold  the  dawn  of  it;  after  twelve  years'  silent 
waiting,  all  England  stirs  itself;  there  is  to  be  once 
more  a  Parliament,  the  Right  will  get  a  voice  for  it- 
self: inexpressible,  well  grounded  hope  has  come 
again  into  the  Earth.  Was  not  such  a  Parliament 
worth  being  a  member  of?  Cromwell  threw  down 
his  ploughs  and  hastened  thither.  He  spoke  there, 
— rugged  bursts  of  earnestness,  of  a  self-seen  truth, 
where  we  get  a  glimpse  of  them.  He  worked  there; 
he  fought  and  strove,  like  a  strong  true  giant  of  a 
man,  through  cannon-tumult  and  all  else, — on  and 
on,  till  the  Cause  triumphed,  its  once  so  formidable 
enemies  all  swept  from  before  it,  and  the  dawn  of 
hope  had  become  clear  light  of  victory  and  certainty. 
That  he  stood  there  as  the  strongest  soul  of  England, 
the  undisputed  Hero  of  all  England, — what  of  this? 
It  was  possible  that  the  Law  of  Christ's  Gospel  could 
now  establish  itself  in  the  world !  The  Theocracy 
which  John  Knox  in  his  pulpit  might  dream  of  as  a 
"devout  imagination,"   this  practical  man,  experi- 


LECT.    VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  279 

enced  in  the  whole  chaos  of  most  rough  practice,  dared 
to  consider  as  capable  of  being  realized.  Those  that 
were  highest  in  Christ's  Church,  the  devoutest,  wisest 
men,  were  to  rule  the  land:  in  some  considerable 
degree,  it  might  be  so,  and  should  be  so.  Was  it  not 
true,  God's  truth?  And  if  true,  was  it  not  then  the 
very  thing  to  do  ?  The  strongest  practical  intellect  in 
England  dared  to  answer,  Yes!  This  I  call  a  noble 
true  purpose:  is  it  not,  in  its  own  dialect,  the  noblest 
that  could  enter  into  the  heart  of  Statesman  or  man? 
For  a  Knox  to  take  it  up  was  something;  but  for  a 
Cromwell,  with  his  great  sound  sense  and  experience 
of  what  our  world  was, — History,  1  think,  shows  it 
only  this  once  in  such  a  degree.  I  account  it  the 
culminating  point  of  Protestantism;  the  most  heroic 
phasis  that  "Faith  in  the  Bible"  was  appointed  to  ex- 
hibit here  below.  Fancy  it:  that  it  were  made  mani- 
fest to  one  of  us,  how  we  could  make  the  right  su- 
premely victorious  over  Wrong,  and  all  that  we  had 
longed  and  prayed  for,  as  the  highest  good  to  Eng- 
land and  all  lands,  an  attainable  fact! 

Well,  I  must  say,  the  vulpine  intellect,  with  its 
knowingness,  its  alertness  and  expertness  in  "de- 
tecting hypocrites,"  seems  to  me  a  rather  sorry  busi- 
ness. We  have  had  but  one  such  Statesman  in  Eng- 
land; one  man,  that  I  can  get  sight  of,  who  ever 
had  in  the  heart  of  him  any  such  purpose  at  all. 
One  man,  in  the  course  of  fifteen  hundred  years;  and 
this  was  his  welcome.  He  had  adherents  by  the 
hundred  or  the  ten;  opponents  by  the  million.  Had 
England  rallied  all  round  him, — England  might 
have  been  a  Christian  land !  As  it  is,  vulpine  know- 
ingness sits  yet  at  its  hopeless  problem,  "  Given  a 
world  of  Knaves,  to  educe  an  Honesty  from  their 


280  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

joint  action;" — how  cumbrous  a  problem  you  may 
see  in  Chancery  Law-Courts,  and  some  other  places! 
Till  at  length,  by  Heaven's  just  anger,  but  also  by 
Heaven's  great  grace,  the  matter  begins  to  stagnate; 
and  this  problem  is  becoming  to  all  men  a  palpably 
hopeless  one. — 

But  with  regard  to  Cromwell  and  his  purposes: — 
Hume,  and  a  multitude  following  him,  come  upon 
me  here  with  an  admission  that  Cromwell  was  sincere 
at  first;  a  sincere  "Fanatic  "  at  first,  but  gradually 
became  a  "Hypocrite"  as  things  opened  round  him. 
This  of  the  Fanatic-Hypocrite  is  Hume's  theory  of 
it;  extensively  applied  since, — to  Mahomet  and 
many  others.  Think  of  it  seriously,  you  will  find 
something  in  it;  not  much,  not  all,  very  far  from 
all.  Sincere  hero-hearts  do  not  sink  in  this  miserable 
manner.  The  Sun  flings  forth  impurities,  gets  bale- 
fully  incrusted  with  spots;  but  it  does  not  quench  it- 
self, and  become  no  Sun  at  all,  but  a  mass  of  Dark- 
ness! I  will  venture  to  say  that  such  never  befell  a 
great,  deep  Cromwell;  I  think,  never.  Nature's 
own  lion-hearted  Son;  Antaeus-like,  his  strength  is 
got  by  touching  the  Earth,  his  mother;  lift  him  up 
from  the  earth,  lift  him  up  into  Hypocrisy,  Inanity, 
his  strength  is  gone.  We  will  not  assert  that  Crom- 
well was  an  immaculate  man;  that  he  fell  into  no 
faults,  no  insincerities  among  the  rest.  He  was  no 
dilettante  professor  of  "perfections,"  "immaculate 
conducts."  He  was  a  rugged  Orson,  rending  his 
rough  way  through  actual  true  work, — doubtless 
with  many  a  fall  therein.  Insincerities,  faults,  very 
many  faults  daily  and  hourly:  it  was  too  well  known 
to  him;  known   to   God  and  him!     The  Sun  was 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  2S1 

dimmed  many  a  time;  but  the  sun  had  not  himself 
grown  a  Dimness.  Cromwell's  last  words,  as  he  lay- 
waiting  for  death,  are  those  of  a  Christian  heroic 
man.  Broken  prayers  to  God,  that  He  would  judge 
him,  He,  since  man  could  not,  injustice,  yet  in  pity. 
They  are  most  touching  words.  He  breathed  out 
his  wild  great  soul,  its  toils  and  sins  all  ended  now, 
into  the  presence  of  his  Maker,  in  this  manner. 

I,  for  one,  will  not  call  the  man  a  Hypocrite!  Hy- 
pocrite, mummer,  the  life  of  him  a  mere  theatricali- 
ty; empty  barren  quack,  hungry  for  the  shouts  of 
mobs?  The  man  had  made  obscurity  do  very  well 
for  him  till  his  head  was  gray;  and  now  he  was,  there 
as  he  stood  recognised  unblamed,  the  virtual  King  of 
England.  Cannot  a  man  do  without  King's  Coaches 
and  Cloaks?  Is  it  such  a  blessedness  to  have  clerks 
for  ever  pestering  you  with  bundles  of  paper  in  red 
tape?  A  simple  Diocletian  prefers  planting  of  cab- 
bages; a  George  Washington,  no  very  immeasu- 
rable man,  does  the  like.  One  would  say,  it  is  what 
any  genuine  man  could  do;  and  would  do.  The  in- 
stant his  real  work  were  out  in  the  matter  of  King- 
ship,— away  with  it! 

Let  us  remark,  mean  while,  how  indispensable 
every  where  a  King  is,  in  all  movements  of  men.  It 
is  strikingly  shown,  in  this  very  war,  what  becomes 
of  men  when  they  cannot  find  a  Chief  Man,  and 
their  enemies  can.  The  Scotch  Nation  was  all  but 
unanimous  in  Puritanism;  zealous  and  of  one  mind 
about  it,  as  in  this  English  end  of  the  Island  was  al- 
ways far  from  being  the  case.  But  there  was  no 
great  Cromwell  among  them;  poor  tremulous,  hesi- 
tating, diplomatic  Argyles  and  such  like;  none  of 
them  had  a  heart  true  enough  for  the  truth,  or  durst 
24 


282  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

commit  himself  to  the  truth.  They  had  no  leader; 
and  the  scattered  Cavalier  party  in  that  country  had 
one;  Montrose,  the  noblest  of  all  the  Cavaliers;  an 
accomplished,  gallant-hearted,  splendid  man;  what 
one  may  call  the  Hero-Cavalier.  Well,  look  at  it: 
on  the  one  hand,  subjects  without  a  King:  on  the 
other,  a  King  without  subjects!  The  subjects  with- 
out King  can  do  nothing;  the  subjectless  King  can 
do  something.  This  Montrose  with  a  handful  of 
Irish  or  Highland  savages,  few  of  them  so  much  as 
guns  in  their  hand,  dashes  at  the  drilled  Puritan  ar- 
mies like  a  wild  whirlwind;  sweeps  them,  time  after 
time,  some  five  times  over,  from  the  field  before  him. 
He  was  at  one  period,  for  a  short  while,  master  of  all 
Scotland.  One  man;  but  he  was  a  man:  a  million 
zealous  men,  but  without  the  one:  they  against  him 
were  powerless!  Perhaps  of  all  the  persons  in  that 
Puritan  struggle,  from  first  to  last,  the  single  indis- 
pensable one  was  verily  Cromwell.  To  see,  and 
dare,  and  decide;  to  be  a  fixed  pillar  in  the  welter 
of  uncertainty; — a  King  among  them,  whether  they 
called  him  so  or  not. 

Precisely  here,  however,  lies  the  rub  for  Cromwell. 
His  other  proceedings  have  all  found  advocates,  and 
stand  generally  justified;  but  this  dismissal  of  the 
Rump  Parliament  and  assumption  of  the  Protector- 
ship, is  what  no  one  can  pardon  him.  He  had  fairly 
grown  to  be  King  in  England,  Chief  Man  of  the 
victorious  party  in  England:  but  it  seems  he  could 
not  do  without  the  King's  Cloak,  and  sold  himself  to 
perdition  in  order  to  get  it.  Let  us  see  a  little  how 
this  was. 

England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  all  lying  now  subdued 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  283 

at  the  feet  of  the  Puritan  Parliament,  the  practical 
question  arose,  What  was  to  be  done  with  it?  How 
will  you  govern  these  Nations,  which  Providence  in 
a  wondrous  way  has  given  up  to  your  disposal? 
Clearly  those  hundred  surviving  members  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  who  sit  there  as  supreme  authori- 
ty, cannot  continue  for  ever  to  sit.  What  is  to  be 
done? — It  was  a  question  which  theoretical  consti- 
tution-builders may  find  easy  to  answer;  but  to 
Cromwell,  looking  there  into  the  real  practical  facts 
of  it,  there  could  be  none  more  complicated.  He 
asked  of  the  Parliament,  What  it  was  they  would 
decide  upon!  It  was  for  the  Parliament  to  say.  Yet 
the  Soldiers  too,  however  contrary  to  Formula,  they 
who  had  purchased  this  victory  with  their  blood,  it 
seemed  to  them  that  they  also  should  have  something 
to  say  in  it!  We  will  not  "for  all  our  fighting  have 
nothing  but  a  little  piece  of  paper/'  We  understand 
that  the  Law  of  God's  Gospel,  to  which  He  through 
us  has  given  the  victory,  shall  establish  itself,  or  try 
to  establish  itself,  in  this  land! 

For  three  years,  Cromwell  says,  this  question  had 
been  sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  Parliament.  They 
could  make  no  answer;  nothing  but  talk,  talk.  Per- 
haps it  lies  in  the  nature  of  parliamentary  bodies; 
perhaps  no  Parliament  could  in  such  case  make  any 
answer  but  even  that  of  talk,  talk!  Nevertheless 
the  question  must  and  shall  be  answered.  You 
sixty  men  there,  becoming  fast  odious,  even  despica- 
ble, to  the  whole  nation,  whom  the  nation  already 
calls  Rump  Parliament,  you  cannot  continue  to  sit 
there:  who  or  what  then  is  to  follow  ?  "  Free  Par- 
liament," right  of  Ejection,  Constitutional  Formulas 
of  one  sort  or  the  other, — the  thing  is  a  hungry  Fact 


284  .         THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

coming  on  us,  which  we  must  answer  or  be  devoured 
by  it!  And  who  are  you  that  prate  of  Constitutional 
Formulas,  rights  of  Parliament?  You  have  had  to 
kill  your  King,  to  make  Pride's  Purges,  to  expel  and 
banish  by  the  law  of  the  stronger  whosoever  would 
not  let  your  Cause  prosper:  there  are  but  fifty  or 
three-score  of  you  left  there,  debating  in  these  days. 
Tell  us  what  we  shall  do;  not  in  the  way  of  Formula, 
but  of  practicable  Fact! 

How  they  did  finally  answer,  remains  obscure  to 
this  day.  The  diligent  Godwin  himself  admits  that 
he  cannot  make  it  out.  The  likeliest  is,  that  this  poor 
Parliament  still  would  not,  and  indeed  could  not  dis- 
solve and  disperse;  that  when  it  came  to  the  point 
of  actually  dispersing,  they  again,  for  the  tenth  or 
twentieth  time,  adjourned  it, — and  Cromwell's  pa- 
tience failed  him.  But  we  will  take  the  favourablest 
hypothesis  ever  started  for  the  Parliament;  the  fa- 
vourablest, though  I  believe  it  is  not  the  true  one, 
but  too  favourable.  According  to  this  version:  At 
the  uttermost  crisis,  when  Cromwell  and  his  Officers 
were  met  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  fifty  or  sixty 
Rump  Members  on  the  other,  it  was  suddenly  told 
Cromwell  that  the  Rump  in  its  despair  was  answer- 
ing in  a  very  singular  way;  that  in  their  splenetic 
envious  despair,  to  keep  out  the  Army  at  least,  these 
men  were  hurrying  through  the  House  a  kind  of  Re- 
form Bill. — Parliament  to  be  chosen  by  the  whole  of 
England;  equable  electoral  division  into  districts;  free 
suffrage,  and  the  rest  of  it!  A  very  questionable,  or 
indeed  for  them  an  unquestionable  thing.  Reform 
Bill,  free  suffrage  of  Englishmen?  Wiry,  the  Roy- 
alists themselves,  silenced  indeed,  but  not  extermi- 
nated, perhaps  out-number  us;  the  great  numerical  ma- 


LECT.  VI.      THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

jority  of  England  was  always  indifferent  to  our 
Cause,  merely  looked  at  it  and  submitted  to  it.  It 
is  in  weight  and  force,  not  by  counting  of  heads, 
that  we  are  the  majority!  And  now  with  your 
Formulas  and  Reform  Bills,  the  whole  matter,  sorely 
won  by  our  swords,  shall  again  launch  itself  to  sea; 
become  a  mere  hope,  and  likelihood,  small  even  as 
a  likelihood  ?  And  it  is  not  a  likelihood  ;  it  is  a  cer- 
tainty, which  we  have  won,  by  God's  strength  and 
our  own  right  hands,  and  do  now  hold  here.  Crom- 
well walked  down  to  these  refractory  Members;  in- 
terrupted them  in  that  rapid  speed  of  their  Reform 
Bill; — ordered  them  to  begone,  and  talk  there  no 
more. — Can  we  not  forgive  him?  Can  we  not  un- 
derstand him?  John  Milton,  who  looked  on  it  all 
near  at  hand,  could  applaud  him.  The  Reality  had 
swept  the  Formulas  away  before  it.  I  fancy,  most 
men  who  were  Realities  in  England  might  see  into 
the  necessity  of  that. 

The  strong  daring  man,  therefore,  has  set  all  man* 
ner  of  Formulas  and  logical  superficialities  against 
him;  has  dared  appeal  to  the  genuine  Fact  of  this 
England,  Whether  it  will  support  him  or  not  ?  It 
is  curious  to  see  how  he  struggles  to  govern  in  some 
constitutional  way;  find  some  Parliament  to  support 
him;  but  cannot.  His  first  Parliament,  the  one  they 
call  Barebone's  Parliament,  is,  so  to  speak,  a  Con- 
vocation of  the  Notables.  From  all  quarters  of  Eng- 
land the  leading  Ministers  and  chief  Puritan  officials 
nominate  the  men  most  distinguished  by  religious 
reputation,  influence  and  attachment  to  the  true 
Cause :  these  are  assembled  to  shape  out  a  plan. 
They  sanctioned  what  was  past;  shaped  as  they 
could  what  was  to  come.  They  were  scornfully  called 
24* 


2S6  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Barebones's  Parliament:  the  man's  name,  it  seems, 
was  not  Barebones,  but  Barbone, — a  good  enough 
man.  Nor  was  it  a  jest,  their  work;  it  was  a  most 
serious  reality, — -a  trial  on  the  part  of  these  Puritan 
Notables  how  far  the  Law  of  Christ  could  become 
the  Law  of  this  England.  There  were  men  of  sense 
among  them,  men  of  some  quality;  men  of  deep 
piety  I  suppose  the  most  of  them  were.  They  failed, 
it  seems,  and  broke  down,  endeavouring  to  reform 
the  Court  of  Chancery!  They  appointed  Cromwell 
Protector,  and  went  their  ways. 

The  second  Parliament,  chosen  by  the  rule  these 
Notables  had  fixed  upon,  did  assemble,  and  worked; 
— but  got,  before  long,  into  bottomless  questions  as 
to  the  Protector's  right,  as  to  "  usurpation,"  and  so 
forth;  and  had  at  the  earliest  legal  day  to  be  dis- 
missed. Cromwell's  concluding  Speech  to  these 
men  is  a  remarkable  one.  Most  rude,  chaotic,  as  all 
his  Speeches  are;  but  most  earnest-looking.  You 
would  say,  it  was  a  sincere  helpless  man;  not  used 
to  speak  the  great  inorganic  thought  of  him,  but  to 
act  it  rather!  A  helplessness  of  utterance,  in  such 
bursting  fulness  of  meaning.  He  talks  much  about 
et  births  of  Providence:"  All  these  changes,  so  many 
victories  and  events,  were  not  forethoughts,  and  thea- 
trical contrivances  of  men,  of  me  or  of  men;  it  is 
blind  blasphemers  that  will  persist  in  calling  them 
so  !  He  insists  with  a  heavy,  sulphurous  wrathful 
emphasis  on  this.  As  he  well  might!  As  if  a 
Cromwell  in  that  dark  huge  game  he  had  been  play- 
ing, the  world  wholly  thrown  into  chaos  round  him, 
had  foreseen  it  all,  played  it  all  off  like  a  precontrived 
puppet-show  by  wood  and  wire!  These  things  were 
foreseen  by  no  man,  he  says;    no  man    could   tell 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  287 

what  a  day  would  bring  forth:  they  were  "  births  of 
Providence,"  God's  finger  guided  us  on,  and  we  came 
at  last  to  clear  height  of  victory,  God's  Cause  tri- 
umphant in  these  Nations;  and  you  as  a  parliament 
could  assemble  together,  and  say  in  what  manner 
all  this  could  be  organized,  reduced  into  rational 
feasibility  among  the  affairs  of  men.  You  were  to 
help  with  your  wise  counsel  in  doing  that.  "You 
have  had  such  an  opportunity  as  no  Parliament  in 
England  ever  had."  Christ's  Law,  the  Right  a-nd 
True,  was  to  be  in  some  measure  made  the  Law  of 
this  land.  In  place  of  that,  you  have  got  into  your 
idle  pedantries,  constitutionalities,  bottomless  cavil- 
lings and  questionings  about  written  laws  for  my 
coming  here; — and  would  send  the  whole  matter 
into  Chaos  again,  because  I  have  no  Notary's  parch- 
ment, but  only  God's  voice  from  the  battle-whirl- 
wind, for  being  President  among  you!  That  oppor- 
tunity is  gone;  and  we  know  not  when  it  will  return. 
You  have  had  your  constitutional  Logic;  and  Mam- 
mon's Law,  not  Christ's  Law  rules  yet  in  this  land. 
"  God  be  judge  between  you  and  me!"  These  are 
his  final  words  to  them :  Take  you  your  constitu- 
tional-formulas in  your  hand;  and  I  my  informal 
struggles,  purposes,  realities  and  acts;  and  "God  be 
judge  between  you  and  me!" 

We  said  above  what  shapeless,  involved,  chaotic 
things  these  printed  Speeches  of  Cromwell's  are. 
Wilfully  ambiguous,  unintelligible,  say  the  most:  a 
hypocrite  shrouding  himself  in  confused  Jesuistic 
jargon !  To  me  they  do  not  seem  so.  I  will  say 
rather,  they  afforded  the  first  glimpses  I  could  ever 
get  into  the  reality  of  this  Cromwell,  nay  into  the 
possibility  of  him.      Try  to  believe  that  he  means 


288  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

something,  search  lovingly  what  that  may  be:  you 
will  find  a  real  speech  lying  imprisoned  in  these  bro- 
ken rude  tortuous  utterances;  a  meaning  in  the  great 
heart  of  this  inarticulate  man !  You  will,  for  the 
first  time,  begin  to  see  that  he  was  a  man;  not  an 
enigmatic  chimera,  unintelligible  to  you,  incredible 
to  you.  The  Histories  and  Biographies  written  of 
this  Cromwell,  written  in  shallow  skeptical  genera- 
tions that  could  not  know  or  conceive  of  a  deep  be- 
lieving man,  are  far  more  obscure  than  Cromwell's 
Speeches.  You  look  through  them  only  into  the  in- 
finite vague  of  Black  and  the  Inane.  "Heats  and 
jealousies,"  says  Lord  Clarendon  himself :  "heats  and 
jealousies,"  mere  crabbed  whims,  theories,  and 
crotchets;  these  induced  slow,  sober,  quiet  English- 
men to  lay  down  their  ploughs  and  wTork;  and  fly 
into  red  fury  of  confused  war  against  the  best-con- 
ditioned of  Kings !  Try  if  you  can  find  that  true. 
Skepticism  writing  about  Belief  may  have  great  gifts; 
but  it  is  really  ultra  vires  there.  It  is  Blindness  lay- 
ing down  the  Laws  of  Optics. — 

Cromwell's  third  Parliament  split  on  the  same 
rock  as  his  second.  Ever  the  constitutional  Formu- 
la: How  came  you  there?  Show  us  some  Notary 
parchment!  Blind  pedants: — "Why,  surely  the 
same  power  which  makes  you  a  Parliament,  that, 
and  something  more,  made  me  a  Protector!"  If 
my  Protectorship  is  nothing,  what  in  the  name  of 
Wonder  is  your  Parliamenteership,  a  reflex  and  crea- 
tion of  that? — 

Parliaments  having  failed,  there  remained  nothing 
but  the  way  of  Despotism.  Military  Dictators,  each 
With  his  district,  to  coerce  the  Royalist  and  other 
gainsay ers,  to  govern  them*,  if  not  by  act  cf  TarUa* 


LECT.  VI.       THE  HERO  AS  KING.  289 

ment,  then  by  the  sword.  Formula  shall  not  carry 
it,  while  the  Reality  is  here!  I  will  go  on,  protect- 
ing oppressed  Protestants  abroad,  appointing  just 
judges,  wise  managers,  at  home,  cherishing  true 
Gospel  ministers;  doing  the  best  I  can  to  make 
England  a  Christian  England,  greater  than  old  Rome, 
the  Queen  of  Protestant  Christianity;  I,  since  you 
will  not  help  me;  I,  while  God  leaves  me  life! — 
Why  did  he  not  give  it  up;  retire  into  obscurity 
again,  since  the  Law  would  not  acknowledge  him? 
cry  several.  That  is  where  they  mistake.  For  him 
there  was  no  giving  of  it  up  !  Prime  Ministers  have 
governed  countries,  Pitt,  Pombal,  Choiseul;  and 
their  word  was  a  law  while  it  held:  but  this  Prime 
Minister  was  one  that  could  not  get  resigned.  Let 
him  once  resign,  Charles  Stuart  and  the  Cavaliers 
wanted  to  kill  him;  to  kill  the  Cause  and  him.  Once 
embarked,  there  is  no  retreat,  no  return.  This  Prime 
Minister  could  retire  no  whither  except  into  his  tomb. 
One  is  sorry  for  Cromwell  in  his  old  clays.  His 
complaint  is  incessant  of  the  heavy  burden  Provi- 
dence has  laid  on  him.  Heavy;  which  he  must 
bear  till  death.  Old  Colonel  Hutcheson,  as  his  wife 
relates  it,  Hutcheson  his  old  battle-mate,  coming  to 
see  him  on  some  indispensable  business,  much 
against  his  will, — Cromwell  "  follows  him  to  the 
door,"  in  a  most  fraternal,  domestic,  conciliatory 
style ;  begs  that  he  would  be  reconciled  to  him,  his 
old  brother-in-arms;  says  how  much  it  grieves  him 
to  be  misunderstood,  deserted  by  true  fellow  soldiers, 
dear  to  him  from  of  old:  the  rigorous  Hutcheson, 
cased  in  his  Presbyterian  formula,  sullenly  goes  his 
way. — And  the  man's  head  now  white;  his  strong 
arm  growing  weary  with  its  long  work!     I  think 


290  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

always  too  of  his  poor  Mother,  now  very  old,  living 
in  that  Palace  of  his;  a  right  brave  woman;  as  in* 
deed  they  lived  all  an  honest  God-fearing  House- 
hold there:  if  she  heard  a  shot  go  off,  she  thought 
it  was  her  son  killed.  He  had  to  come  to  her  twice 
a  day  that  she  might  see  with  her  own  eyes  that  he 

was  yet  living.     The  poor  old  Mother! What 

had  this  man  gained;  what  had  he  gained?  He 
had  a  life  of  sore  strife  and  toil,  to  his  last  day. 
Fame,  ambition,  place  in  History?  His  dead  body 
was  hung  in  chains:  his  "  place  in  History" — place 
in  History  forsooth — has  been  a  place  of  ignominy, 
accusation,  blackness  and  disgrace;  and  here,  this 
day,  who  knows  if  it  is  not  rash  in  me  to  be  among 
the  first  that  ever  ventured  to  pronounce  him  not 
a  knave  and  a  liar,  but  a  genuinely  honest  man  ! 
Peace  to  him.  Did  he  not,  in  spite  of  all,  accom- 
plish much  for  us  ?  We  walk  smoothly  over  his  great 
rough  heroic  life;  step  over  his  body  sunk  in  the 
ditch  there.  We  need  not  spurn  it,  as  we  step  on 
it ! — Let  the  Hero  rest.  It  was  not  to  men's  judg- 
ment that  he  appealed;  nor  have  men  judged  him 
very  well. 

Precisely  a  century  and  a  year  after  this  of  Puri- 
tanism had  got  itself  hushed  up  into  decent  compo- 
sure, and  its  results  made  smooth,  in  16S8,  there 
broke  out  a  far  deeper  explosion,  much  more  difficult 
to  hush  up,  known  to  all  mortals,  and  like  to  be  long 
known,  hy  the  name  of  French  Revolution.  It  is 
properly  the  third  and  final  act  of  Protestantism;  the 
explosive  confused  return  of  mankind  to  Realit}^  and 
Fact,  now  that  they  were  perishing  of  Semblance 
and  Sham.  We  call  our  English  Puritanism  the 
second   act:   "Well   then  the  Bible  is  true;  let  us 


LECT.  VI.        THE  HERO  AS  KING.  291 

go  by  the  Bible!"  "In  Church,"  said  Luther;  "In 
Church  and  State,"  said  Cromwell,  "let  us  go  by 
what  actually  is  God's  Truth."  Men  have  to  re- 
turn to  reality;  they  cannot  live  on  semblance. 
The  French  Revolution,  or  third  act,  we  may-  well 
call  the  final  one ;  for  lower  than  that  savage  Sans- 
culottism  men  cannot  go.  They  stand  there  on  the 
nakedest  haggard  Fact,  undeniable  in  all  seasons 
and  circumstances;  and  may  and  must  begin  again 
confidently  to  build  up  from  that.  The  French  ex- 
plosion, like  the  English  one,  got  its  King, — who 
had  no  Notary  parchment  to  show  for  himself.  We 
have  still  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  Napoleon,  our 
second  modern  King. 

Napoleon  does  by  no  means  seem  to  me  so  great 
a  man  as  Cromwell.  His  enormous  victories  which 
reached  over  all  Europe,  while  Cromwell  abode 
mainly  in  our  little  England,  are  but  as  the  high 
stilts  on  which  the  man  is  seen  standing;  the  stature 
of  the  man  is  not  altered  thereby.  I  find  in  him  no 
such  sincerity  as  in  Cromwell;  only  a  far  inferior 
sort.  No  silent  walking,  through  long  years,  with 
the  Awful  Unnameable  of  this  Universe;  "walking 
with  God,"  as  he  called  it;  and  faith  and  strength 
in  that  alone:  latent  thought  and  valour,  content  to 
lie  latent,  then  burst  out  as  in  a  blaze  of  Heaven's 
lightning!  Napoleon  lived  in  an  age  when  God  was 
no  longer  believed;  the  meaning  of  all  Silence,  La- 
tency, was  thought  to  be  Nonentity:  he  had  to  be- 
gin, not  out  of  the  Puritan  Bible,  but  out  of  poor 
Skeptical  Encyclopedias.  This  was  the  length  the 
man  carried  it.  Meritorious  to  get  so  far.  His  com- 
pact, prompt,  e very-way  articulate  character  is  in 
itself  perhaps  small,  compared  with  our  great  chaotic 


292  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

Particulate  Cromwell's.  Instead  of  "  dumb  Prophet 
struggling  to  speak,"  we  have  a  portentous  mixture 
of  the  Quack  withal!  Hume's  notion  of  the  Fana- 
tic-Hypocrite, with  such  truth  as  it  has,  will  apply 
much  better  to  Napoleon,  than  it  did  to  Cromwell,  to 
Mahomet  or  the  like, — where  indeed  taken  strictly 
it  has  hardly  any  truth  at  all.  An  element  of  blame- 
able  ambition  shows  itself,  from  the  first,  in  this  man; 
gets  the  victory  over  him  at  last,  and  involves  him 
and  his  work  in  ruin. 

"False  as  a  bulletin  "  became  a  proverb  in  Napo- 
leon's time.  He  makes  what  excuse  he  could  for  it: 
that  it  was  necessary  to  mislead  the  enemy,  to  keep 
up  his  own  men's  courage,  and  so  forth.  On  the 
whole,  these  are  no  excuses.  V  A  man  in  no  case  has 
any  liberty  to  tell  lies.  It  had  been  in  the  long-run 
belter  for  Napoleon  too  if  he  had  not  told  any.  In 
fact,  if  a  man  have  any  purpose  reaching  beyond 
the  hour  and  day,  meant  to  be  found  extant  next  day, 
what  good  can  it  ever  be  to  promulgate  lies?  The 
lies  are  found  out;  ruinous  penalty  is  exacted  for 
them.  No  man  will  believe  the  liar  next  time  even 
when  he  speaks  truth,  when  it  is  of  the  last  impor- 
tance that  he  be  believed.  The  old  cry  of  wolf! 
— A  lie  is  no-thing;  you  cannot  of  nothing  make 
something;  you  make  nothing  at  last,  and  lose  your 
labour  in  the  bargain. 

Yet  Napoleon  had  a  sincerity:  we  are  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  superficial  and  what  is  fundamental 
in  insincerity.  Across  these  outer  manceuvrings 
and  quackeries  of  his,  which  were  many  and  most 
blameable,  let  us  discern  withal  that  the  man  had  a 
certain  instinctive  ineradical  feeling  for  reality:  and 
did  base  himself  upon  fact,  so  long  as  he  had  any 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  293 

basis.     He  has  an  instinct  of  Nature  better  than  his 
culture  was.    His  savans,  Bourrienne  tells  us,  in  that 
voyage  to  Egypt  were  one  evening  busily  occupied 
arguing  that  there  could  be  no   God.      They  had 
proved  it,  to  their  satisfaction,  by  all  manner  of  logic. 
Napoleon  looking  up  into  the  stars,  answers,  "Very  - 
ingenious,  Messieurs:  but  who  made  all  that?"     The 
Atheistic  logic  runs  off  from  him  like  water;  the 
great  Fact  stares  him  in  the  face:  "Who  made  all 
that?"     So  too  in  Practice:   he,  as  every  man  that 
can  be  great,  or  have  victory  in  this   world,  sees, 
through  all  entanglements,  the  practical  heart  of  the 
matter;   drives  straight  towards  that."      When  the 
steward  of  his  Tuilleries  Palace  was  exhibiting  the 
new  upholstery,  with  praises,  and  demonstration  how 
glorious  it  was,  and   how  cheap  withal,  Napoleon, 
making  little  answer,  asked  for  a  pair  of  scissors, 
clipped  one  of  the  gold  tassels  from  a  window-cur- 
tain, put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  walked   on.      Some 
days  afterwards,  he  produced  it  at  the  right  moment, 
to  the  horror  of  his  upholstery  functionary:   it  was 
not  gold  but  tinsel!     In  Saint  Helena,  it  is  notable 
how  he  still,  to  his  last  days,  insists  on  the  practical, 
the   real.       "  Why  talk  and   complain;  above   all, 
why  quarrel  with  one  another  ?    There  is  no  resultat 
in  it;  it  comes  to  nothing  that  one  can  do.     Say  no- 
thing, if  one  can  do  nothing!"    He  speaks  often  so, 
to  his  poor  discontented  followers;  he  is  like  a  piece 
of  silent  strength  in  the  middle  of  their   morbid 
querulousness  there. 

And  accordingly  was  there  not  what  we  can  call  a 

faith  in  him,  genuine  so  far  as  it  went?     That  this 

new  enormous  Democracy,  asserting  itself  here  in 

the  French  Revolution  is  an  insuppressible  Fact, 

25 


294  THE  HERO  AS  KIXG. 

which  the  whole  world,  with  its  old  forces  and  insti- 
tutions, cannot  put  down:  this  was  a  true  insight  of 
his,  and  took  his  conscience  and  enthusiasm  along 
with  it, — a  faith.  And  did  he  not  interpret  the  dim 
purport  of  it  well?  "La  carriere  ouverte  aux  talens, 
-f-The  implements  to  him  who  can  handle  them;"  this 
actually  is  the  truth,  and  even  the  whole  truth;  it 
includes  whatever  the  French  Revolution  or  any  Re- 
volution could  mean.  Napoleon,  in  his  first  period, 
was  a  true  Democrat.  And  yet  by  the  nature  of  him, 
fostered  too  by  his  military  trade,  he  knew  that  De- 
mocracy, if  it  were  a  true  thing  at  all,  could  not  be 
an  anarchy:  the  man  had  a  heart-hatred  for  anarchy. 
On  that  Twentieth  of  June  (1792,)  Bourrienne  and 
he  sat  in  a  coffee-house,  as  the  mob  rolled  by:  Napo- 
leon expresses  the  deepest  contempt  for  persons  in 
authority  that  they  do  not  restrain  this  rabble.  On 
the  10th  of  August  he  wonders  why  there  is  no  man 
to  command  these  poor  Swiss;  they  would  conquer 
if  there  were.  Such  a  faith  in  Democracy,  yet  ha- 
tred of  anarchy,  it  is  that  carries  Napoleon  through 
all  his  great  work.  Through  his  brilliant  Italian 
Campaigns,  onwards  to  the  Peace  of  Loeben,  one 
would  say,  his  inspiration  is:  "  Triumph  to  the  French 
Revolution;  assertion  of  it  against  these  Austrian 
Simulacra  that  pretend  to  call  it  a  Simulacrum!" 
Withal,  however,  he  feels,  and  has  a  right  to  feel, 
how  necessary  a  strong  Authority  is;  how  the  Re- 
volution cannot  prosper  or  last  without  such.  To 
bridle  in  that  great  devouring,  self-devouring  French 
Revolution;  to  tame  it,  so  that  its  intrinsic  purpose 
can  be  made  good,  that  it  may  become  organic,  and 
be  able  to  live  among  other  organisms  and  formed 
things,  not  as  a  wasting  destruction  alone:  is  not 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  295 

this  still  what  he  partly  aimed  at,  as  the  true  purport 
of  his  life;  nay  what  he  actually  managed  to  do? 
Through  Wagrams,  Austerlitzes;  triumph  after  tri- 
umph,— he  triumphed  so  far.  -There  was  an  eye  to 
see  in  this  man,  a  soul  to  dare  and  do.  He  rose  natu- 
rally to  be  the  King,  r  All  men  saw  that  he  was  such. 
The  common  soldiers  used  to  say  on  the  march: 
"These  babbling  tflvocats,  up  at  Paris;  all  talk  and 
no  work!  What  wonder  it  runs  all  wrong?  We 
shall  have  to  go  and  put  our  Petit  Caporal  there!" 
The}/-  went,  and  put  him  there;  they  and  France  at 
large.  Chief-consulship,  Emperorship,  victory  over 
Europe; — till  the  poor  Lieutenant  of  La  Fere,  not 
unnaturally,  might  seem  to  himself  the  greatest  of 
all  men  that  had  been  in  the  world  for  some  ages. 

But  at  this  point,  I  think,  the  fatal  charlatan-ele- 
ment got  the  upper  hand;  He  apostatized  from  his 
old  faith  in  Facts,  took  to  believing  in  Semblances; 
strove  to  connect  himself  with  Austrian  Dynasties, 
Popedoms,  with  the  old  false  Feudalities  which  he 
once  saw  clearly  to  be  false; — considered  that  he 
would  found  "his  Dynasty"  and  so  forth;  that  the 
enormous  French  Revolution  meant  only  that!  The 
man  was  "given  up  to  strong  delusion,  that  he 
should  believe  a  lie;"  a  fearful  but  most  sure  things 
He  did  not  know  true  from  false  now  when  he  looked 
at  them,-f-the  fearfullest  penalty  a  man  pays  for 
yielding  to  untruth  of  heart:  Self  and  false  ambi- 
tion had  now  become  his  god:  se^deception  once 
yielded  to,  all  other  deceptions  follow  naturally  more 
and  more.  -  What  a  paltry  patch-work  of  theatrical 
paper-mantles,  tinsel  and  mummery,  had  this  man 
wrapped  his  own  reality  in,  thinking  to  make  it  more 
real  thereby !  His  hollow  Pope's-  Concordat,  pretend- 
25* 


296  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

ing,  to  be  a  re-establishment  of  Catholicism,  felt  by 
himself  to  be  the  method  of  extirpating  it, "  la  vaccine 
de  la  religion:"  his  ceremonial  Coronations,  consecra- 
tions by  the  old  Italian  Chimera  in  Notre-Dame  there, 
— "wanting  nothing  to  complete  the  pomp  of  it,"  as 
Augereau  said,  "nothing  but  the  half-million  men 
who  had  died  to  put  an  end  to  all  that!"  Crom- 
well's Inauguration  was  by  the  Sword  and  Bible; 
what  we  must  call  a  genuinely  true  one.  Sword 
and  Bible  were  borne  before  him,  without  any 
chimera:  were  not  these  the  real  emblems  of  Puri- 
tanism: its  true  decoration  and  insignia?  It  had 
used  them  both  in  a  very  real  manner,  and  pretended 
to  stand  by  them  now!  But  this  poor  Napoleon 
mistook:  he  believed  too  much  in  the  Dupeability  of 
men;  saw  no  fact  deeper  in  man  than  Hunger  and 
this!  He  was  mistaken.  '  Like  a  man  that  should 
build  upon  cloud:  his  house  and  he  fall  down  in 
confused  wreck,  and  depart  out  of  the  world. 

Alas,  in  all  of  us  this  charlatan-element  exists; 
and  might  be  developed,  were  the  temptation  strong 
enough.  "Lead  us  not  into  temptation!"  But  it  is 
fatal,  I  say,  that  it  be  developed.  The  thing  into 
which  it  enters  as  a  cognizable  ingredient  is  doomed  to 
be  altogether  transitory;  and,  however  huge  it  may 
look,  is  in  itself  small.  Napoleon's  working,  accord- 
ingly, what  was  it  with  all  the  noise  it  made?  A 
flash  as  of  gun-powder  wide-spread;  a  blazing-up  as 
of  dry  heath.  For  an  hour  the  whole  Universe 
seems  wrapped  in  smoke  and  flame;  but  only  for  an 
hour.  It  goes  out:  the  Universe  with  its  old  moun- 
tains and  streams,  its  stars  above  and  kind  soil  be- 
neath, is  still  there. 

The  Duke  of  Weimar  told  his  friends  always,  To 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  297 

be  of  courage;  this  Napoleonism  was  unjust,  a  false- 
hood, and  could  not  last.  It  is  true  doctrine.  The 
heavier  this  Napoleon  trampled  on  the  world,  hold- 
ing it  tyrannously  down,  the  fiercer  would  the  world's 
recoil  against  him  be,  one  day.  f  Injustice  pays  itself 
with  frightful  compound-interest.  I  am  not  sure  but 
he  had  better  have  lost  his  best  park  of  artillery,  or 
had  his  best  regiment  drowned  in  the  sea,  than  shot 
that  poor  German  Bookseller,  Palm !  It  was  a  pal- 
pable tyrannous  murderous  injustice,  which  no  man, 
let  him  paint  an  inch  thick,  could  make  out  to  be 
other.  It  burnt  deep  into  the  hearts  of  men,  it  and 
the  like  of  it;  suppressed  fire  flashed  in  the  eyes  of 
men,  as  they  thought  of  it, — waiting  their  day! 
Which  day  came ;  Germany  rose  round  him.-/-What 
Napoleon  did  will  in  the  long-run  amount  to  what 
he  did  justly;  what  nature  with  her  laws  will  sanc- 
tion. To  what  of  reality  was  in  him;  to  that  and 
nothing  more:*  The  rest  was  all  smoke  and  waste. 
La  carrihre  ouverte  aux  ialens:  that  great  true  Mes- 
sage, which  has  yet  to  articulate  and  fulfil  itself 
every  where,  he  left  in  a  most  inarticulate  state.  He 
was  a  great  ebauche,  rude-draught;  as  indeed  what 
great  man  is  not?    Left  in  too  rude  a  state,  alas! 

His  notions  of  the  world,  as  he  expresses  them 
there  at  St.  Helena,  are  almost  tragical  to  consider. 
He  seems  to  feel  the  most  unaffected  surprise  that  it 
has  all  gone  so;  that  he  is  flung  out  on  the  rock  here, 
and  the  World  is' still  moving  on  its  axis.  France  is 
great,  and  all-great;  and  at  bottom,  he  is  France.  Eng- 
land itself,  he  says,  is  by  Nature  only  an  appendage 
of  France;  i(  another  Isle  of  Oleron  to  France."  So 
it  was  by  Nature,  by  Napoleon-Nature;  and  yet 
look  how  in  fact — Here  am  I !     He  cannot  under- 


298  THE  HERO  AS  KING. 

stand  it :  inconceivable  that  the  reality  has  not  cor- 
responded to  his  programme  of  it;  that  France  was 
not  all  great,  that  he  was  not  France.  U  Strong  de- 
lusion/' that  he  should  believe  the  thing  to  be  which 
is  not!  The  compact,  clear-seeing,  decisive  Italian 
nature  of  him,  strong,  genuine,  which  he  once  had, 
has  enveloped  itself,  half  dissolved  itself,  in  a  turbid 
atmosphere  of  French  Fanfaronade.  The  world 
was  not  disposed  to  be  trodden  down  under  foot;  to 
be  bound  into  masses,  and  be  built  together,  as  he 
liked,  for  a  pedestal  to  France  and  him:  the  world 
had  quite  other  purposes  in  view!  Napoleon's  as- 
tonishment is  extreme.  HBut  alas,  what  help  now? 
He  had  gone  that  way  .of  hjs;  and  Nature  also  had 
gone  her  way:  Having  once  parted  with  Reality, 
he  tumbles  helpless  in  Vacuity;  no  rescue  for  him. 
He  had  to  sink  there,  mournfully  as  man  seldom  did; 
and  break  his  great  heart,  and  die, — this  poor  Napo- 
leon: a  great  implement  too  soon  wasted,  till  it  was 
useless:  our  last  Great  Man! 


Our  kst,  in  a  double  sense.  For  here  finally  these 
wide  roamings  of  ours  through  so  many  times  and 
places,  in  search  and  study  of  Heroes,  are  to  termi- 
nate. I  am  sorry  for  it :  there  was  pleasure  for  me 
in  this  business,  if  also  much  pain.  It  is  a  great 
subject,  and  a  most  grave  and  wide  one,  this  which, 
not  to  be  too  grave  about  it,  I  have  named  Hero- 
worship.  It  enters  deeply,  as  I  think,  into  the  se- 
cret of  Mankind's  ways  and  vitalest  interests  in  this 
world,  and  is  well  worth  explaining  at  present. 
With  six  months,  instead  of  six  days,  we  might  have 
done  better.     I  promised  to  break  ground  on  it;  I 


LECT.  VI.  THE  HERO  AS  KING.  299 

know  not  whether  I  have  even  managed  to  do  that. 
I  have  had  to  tear  it  up  in  the  rudest  manner  in 
order  to  get  into  it  at.all.  Often  enough,  with  these 
abrupt  utterances  thrown  out  isolated,  unexplained, 
has  your  tolerance  been  put  to  the  trial.  Tolerance, 
patient  candour,  all-hoping  favour  and  kindness, 
which  I  will  not  speak  of  at  present.  The  accom- 
plished and  distinguished,  the  beautiful,  the  wise, 
something  of  what  is  best  in  England,  have  listened 
patiently  to  my  rude  words.  With  many  feelings,  I 
heartily  thank  you  all;  and  say,  Good  be  with 
vou  all! 


THE    END. 


t 


